A Buyer’s Guide to Compare Pet Foods

One of the most common things pet food manufacturers try to make us believe is that their ingredients are better than another pet food. Blue Buffalo has built a years-long advertising campaign on this very marketing message.

Chicken seems better than Chicken by-products, right? Real meat is best, right? Not necessarily.

Don’t let their marketing mislead you. Keep reminding yourself: pet food ingredients are not the same thing as the same ingredient in human food. 

The ingredients in a pet food cannot be compared with another brand until you know these two things about the pet foods…

• the quality of the ingredient 
• what parts of the ingredient are included

Ingredient Quality

The FDA has allowed waste ingredients to be disposed of in pet food for decades (and continues to today), and the agency has never required disclosure of those waste ingredients on a pet food label. In the Compliance Policy Rendered Animal Feed Ingredients the FDA states: “No regulatory action will be considered for animal feed ingredients resulting from the ordinary rendering process of industry, including those using animals which have died otherwise than by slaughter, provided they are not otherwise in violation of the law.”

The FDA removed this public disclosure of the agency permitting illegal (per federal law) ingredients to be used in pet food/animal feed in 2019 – but at the same time the Director of FDA Center for Veterinary Medicine (CVM) Dr. Steven Solomon stated: “we do not believe that the use of diseased animals or animals that died otherwise than by slaughter to make animal food poses a safety concern and we intend to continue to exercise enforcement discretion.”

So…when a pet food brags their pet food is better because ‘real chicken is the first ingredient’ – that real chicken could be condemned chicken. To properly compare pet foods the question of ingredient quality (are meat ingredients USDA inspected and passed?) has to be known.

What Parts?

Pet food marketing frequently pitches consumers with ‘Made with Real Chicken’. But pet food chicken has a very different definition than the chicken consumers are familiar with. 

AAFCO regulations define chicken (poultry) as “the clean combination of flesh and skin with or without accompanying bone, derived from the parts or whole carcasses of slaughtered poultry, or a combination thereof, exclusive of feathers, heads, feet and viscera. If it bears a name descriptive of its kind, it must correspond thereto. If the bone has been removed, the process may be so designated by use of the appropriate feed term. It shall be suitable for use in animal food.”

Pet food chicken is NOT required to be sourced from USDA inspected and passed chicken, and it is NOT required to be meat. Per AAFCO’s definition – what is marketed to pet owners as ‘Real Chicken’ – can be just skin and bones. To properly compare pet foods, must know what parts of the chicken is included in the pet food.

If you are going to compare pet foods, ask these questions first…

• Are all animal origin ingredients sourced from USDA inspected and passed animals?
• Can you provide me with a detailed list of what is included in the ingredient chicken (or beef or pork)? What cuts or parts of the animal are included in the pet food?

Human Grade Pet Foods

The exception to pet food ingredient quality is Human Grade pet foods; pet foods that state on the label (ignore website claims) the words “Human Grade”. This classification of pet food is required to be manufactured in a licensed human food facility which prohibits condemned or un-inspected and passed animal parts. Pet foods labeled with Human Grade would guarantee a pet owner meat ingredients (and all other ingredients including supplements) are human edible.

Pet Owners Should Be Informed

We should not have to ask these types of questions of our pet food manufacturers. In 2020 we (Association for Truth in Pet Food) submitted to AAFCO updated animal origin ingredient definitions that would have disclosed the quality (feed grade or human grade) and disclosed exactly what parts of the animal origin ingredient was used. AAFCO ignored our request to update ingredients keeping pet owners in the dark to what is actually in their pet’s food.

And we submitted a formal request to FDA in July 2022 to require disclosure of quality of ingredients on pet food labels. We cited federal law as foundation for our request, which states a food ingredient “may not be confusingly similar to the name of any other food that is not reasonably encompassed within the same name. Each class or subclass of food shall be given its own common or usual name that states, in clear terms, what it is in a way that distinguishes it from different foods.”

Our request to FDA stated that AAFCO definitions – being of the same food ingredient name but with different legal requirements – are ‘confusingly similar’ to other foods and thus are a subclass which federal law requires to be given its own common name. 

The FDA was required by federal law to respond to our request within 180 days…but, 14 months later the agency has not responded. 

Until regulatory authorities abide by law, pet owners will need to continue to do their pet food homework. 

Wishing you and your pet(s) the best,

Susan Thixton
Pet Food Safety Advocate
Author Buyer Beware, Co-Author Dinner PAWsible
TruthaboutPetFood.com
Association for Truth in Pet Food

Become a member of our pet food consumer Association. Association for Truth in Pet Food is a a stakeholder organization representing the voice of pet food consumers at AAFCO and with FDA. Your membership helps representatives attend meetings and voice consumer concerns with regulatory authorities. Click Here to learn more.

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