A recent post on a pet food industry website admits manufacturers and ingredient suppliers have been secretly working to change how pet food is regulated. The change will remove pet food from state regulation, remove pet food from discussion at AAFCO, and move it to only federal regulations.
Currently pet food is regulated on a state and federal level. There are state laws – which can vary from state to state – pet food manufacturers are governed by. And there are federal regulations pet food manufacturers are governed by. Industry stated their challenge is a lack of consistent regulations between states and they intend to change that; “…there’s really only one answer and it’s one federalized system.”
The trade association Pet Food Institute indicated this dramatic shift in how pet food is regulated is a done deal – already agreed to by regulatory authorities. The PFI President stated “This isn’t going to happen tomorrow. It’s two to four years at best.”
What does this mean for pet owners?
We agree that the current system of pet food regulation is a failure. We agree that even though AAFCO has been meeting for more than 100 years with the mission of “unified regulation”, the regulation of pet food is not unified across all US states. Millions of tax payer dollars have been spent trying to achieve that unified regulation, but again – the goal has not been achieved.
But…
If pet food is regulated solely by FDA, will the agency have the funding to properly handle the task? As example state regulatory authorities currently enforce labeling laws, reviewing each and every pet food label annually. Will FDA review pet food labels? Or will pet food labels become even more misleading than they currently are with little to no supervision?
Another concern we have is funding to states. Currently pet food manufacturers are required to register each product they manufacture in each US state and pay fees based on amount of pet food sold (in most states). Those fees help the state to randomly test pet food products – potentially removing a dangerous pet food from store shelves. If those fees to states are stopped through only federal regulation of pet food, will FDA take over the task of randomly testing all styles of pet foods in all regions of the US for safety? Or will more dangerous pet foods slip though regulatory cracks sickening and killing more pets?
The industry post about this significant potential change in pet food regulation stated industry has been discussing this with “states, with AAFCO, with the FDA and with the members of Congress that have a keen interest in supporting this change” for the past 18 months. What about consumers? Did anyone in all those discussions ever think that consumer advocates need to be included? Did those members of Congress – “that have a keen interest in supporting this change” ever think to include us (the largest stakeholder of pet food) in the discussion? Clearly, they did not.
At this point, we are VERY concerned what industry is planning, VERY concerned about the future of pet food regulation.
We sent the FDA the following email (5/22/23):
In a recent post on PetFoodIndustry.com, the publication shared that the Pet Food Institute as well as others have been lobbying FDA, states, and Congress for a federal only system of pet food regulation. The post indicated these significant changes in pet food regulation will be made in “two to four years at best.”
As a representative of pet food consumers, we are extremely concerned these discussions have been happening without any input from consumers, consumer stakeholder organizations.
Please consider this email as an official request for Association for Truth in Pet Food to be included in any and all future discussions regarding the regulation of pet food.
We will be closely watching for any signs that changes are being made without consumer input. As always, anything we learn will be shared with pet owners.
Wishing you and your pet(s) the best,
Susan Thixton
Pet Food Safety Advocate
Author Buyer Beware, Co-Author Dinner PAWsible
TruthaboutPetFood.com
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Adele Gaskin
May 22, 2023 at 3:35 pm
Thank you Susan. I see homemade cat food in my future.
Dr Rock
May 22, 2023 at 4:08 pm
We had a dog with severe GI issues. It was recommended that we try a homemade formula. Whole boiled chicken, cooked rice, boiled carrots, boiled and minced broccoli, and canned pumpkin puree. Worked like a miracle and costs les than regular commercially available dog food. If the prices continue to increase and problems with manufacturer then we will go back to making our own food. Tome consuming process but worth it for safety.
Jeffery Gibbs
May 22, 2023 at 5:55 pm
Hi Susan, I always enjoy reading your blog.
Regarding pet food regulations, the problem from state to state is more opinion than anything else. One state regulator is OK with an ingredient in the ingredient statement another state regulator may have a different opinion. Always thought that the states should have an official AAFCO advisory board to work out such issues before denying registration to a company’s product. The aspect of having to register each and every label with a majority of the states is likely the burden the industry is trying to get out from under.
As for product safety, it’s been my experience that individual states have done a little in this regard. Most of the activity and product safety has been done by the FDA CVM, under the auspices of the FSMA. You can see online the warning letters the FDA has issued to companies that have not met the requirements of the FSMA. However, the FDA has limited resources for doing physical audits of manufacturing facility relying on risk levels and complaints filed online. Even companies that have top-notch food safety programs have suffered human error issue.
As for the product themselves, I would be surprised if any regulatory agency has checked to see if the product meets the nutritional claim as stated on the label. Oh, they may check to see if it makes the guarantee but I doubt that they check to see if they meet their calorie statement or contain the nutrients necessary to meet the claim. The nutritional claim is the most important aspect of a product after the acute safety to both the pet and the human.
Hal
May 23, 2023 at 10:22 am
This is just a ploy by the big manufacturers to get out of regulation.
The FDA doesn’t do any animal food testing outside of pathogens as a result of audits and relies on states for all random testing for nutritional claims, contaminant, and pathogens. The FDA doesn’t check any labels or ingredients.
Recalls and warning letters are basically always started from a state and referred to the FDA. Most of the FDA inspections are done by the states.
They don’t want to register with the states because they want to sell whatever they want without telling anyone. The states are the only group actually looking. If they go down to one FDA office monitoring things, nothing will ever get done and the FDA will rely entirely on manufacturers to self-report. Then if consumers have complaints nothing will happen because there won’t be any state people to investigate.
They just think they have too much regulation and they need a lot less. This is just a big ploy to entirely deregulate. They say it right there in the article. They don’t want to get approval for “novel” ingredients and want to sell more food sourced internationally.
Dave
May 25, 2023 at 8:05 am
Coould also be a ploy to kill human grade pet food and/or raw pet food.