ANIMAL FOOD - THE STILL UNDEFINED COMMODITY

Interestingly, while the Pet Food Committee at the mid-year AAFCO meeting was unable to come to agreement on the definition of "human grade" in reference to pet food, the Ingredient Definitions Committee did approve the human grade definition as: "Every ingredient and the resulting product are stored, handled, processed, and transported in a manner that is consistent and compliant with regulations for current good manufacturing practices for human edible foods as specified in 21 CFR part 117". In this definition, the term is only acceptable in reference to the product as a whole when every ingredient and the resulting product are human grade. The entire product must be human edible and no claims can be made for individual ingredients within the product. The producer must have documentation supporting that each of the individual ingredient suppliers has verified that the individual ingredients supplied to the manufacturer are fit for human consumption. The manufacturing facility must be licensed to produce human food by the appropriate authority.

Interestingly, the one big pet food company representative that seemed to have a problem with the human grade discussion was the man from Blue Buffalo. He made comments about grapes being considered human edible, but that didn't mean they should be in pet food, so saying that something is human edible doesn't qualify it as a good ingredient in pet food. No one was really sure what point he was trying to make and I'm still confused.

They also passed a definition for "Feed Grade" as "material that is safe, functional, and suitable for its intended use in animal food, handled and labeled appropriately, and conforms to the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act". "Suitable for Use in Animal Feed" carries the same definition.

There were over 60 definitions up for discussion at this meeting. I had to leave fifteen minutes early to catch a plane. They were still on number 17 three hours into the meeting. I doubt they got through the other 43 in the last 15 minutes. Ah, the slowness of bureaucracy.

AND...they were still unable to make a definition for "Animal Food". I never in my wildest dreams thought that would be difficult to define.