Field Guide · Glossary
AAFCO feeding test
Food and labelsA trial in which a food is fed to animals under a defined protocol and they are monitored, used to establish that the food is nutritionally adequate.
How it works
It is one of two routes a pet food can take before it may print a nutritional adequacy statement. The other route is formulation, where a recipe is checked on paper against a nutrient profile without ever being fed to an animal. A feeding trial means the food was fed to dogs for a set period while defined health measures were recorded. Neither route is a safety test, and neither compares one food against another.
What it looks like
Two bags on the same shelf can both be complete and balanced for adult maintenance. One carries a statement naming animal feeding tests using AAFCO procedures, which means dogs were fed that food and monitored. The other says formulated to meet, which means the recipe was checked against a profile. The wording on the bag is the only place that difference is visible.
Commonly confused with
- Nutritional adequacy statement
- The adequacy statement is the sentence on the bag saying a food is complete and balanced, and for which life stage. The feeding test is one of the two ways a manufacturer earns the right to print that sentence.
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