If you've bought a lot of dog or cat food, you've probably seen the "AAFCO" sign somewhere on the dog food packaging bags. What does that mean?

AAFCO is The Association of American Feed Control Officials. It is a voluntary membership association made up of local, state and federal agencies.

AAFCO is not a government or regulatory organization. Its job is to determine food safety ingredients, outline requirements for pet food metrics, and establish a nutrition profile based on the latest findings of pet nutrition research.

This set of complete and balanced standards for pet food is often used to formulate national regulations, and the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) also refers to AAFCO information when regulating pet food.

The NUTRITIONAL standards for AAFCO's pet foods are divided into adult and young foods and (pregnant) foods

First, the pet food nutrition standard set for the nutrition maintenance of adult dogs and cats.

Second, the growth and breeding of puppies, pregnant dogs or lactation dogs for cat nutrition standards. AAFCO officials recognize that puppies and pregnant or lactating pets have different nutritional needs than adults. Therefore, they developed a nutritional standard for this group of pet foods.

Pet food can only be claimed to be "complete and balanced" if it meets or exceeds AAFCO's minimum standards.

There are two methods of assessment:

| Laboratory analysis: test pet food products in the laboratory and analyze the nutritional components to verify whether their nutritional components meet AAFCO index standards.

| Feeding test: take a certain number of pets as objects, carry out feeding stage test for at least six months, improve the product feeding as the axis of time to prove the nutritional value of pet food products, in line with AAFCO standards.

By using any of the above methods, the company authorizes the labeling of its dog food to say that it "meets the nutritional standards established by the American Feed Regulatory Association (AAFCO)" or that "Animal feeding tests using the AAFCO program demonstrate [product name] provide complete and balanced nutrition."