Another AAFCO meeting closes. A selling point that I use with members of Next Gen PFMA is that I go to the AAFCO meeting so you don’t have to. Saving you two full days of meetings, and some cases two days of travel. Thousands in hotels, airfares, etc..
But what are you missing?
On an individual meeting basis, it may not seem like a lot. If this had been your first AAFCO meeting, you would’ve thought little happened.
However, individual things did happen at this meeting. Here are a few highlights:
In spite of vociferous argument from the National Animal Supplement Council, jerusalem artichoke (AKA sunchoke) was approved for the common food index. This means it’s an ingredient that’s considered generally safe for animals. There are no safety issues. And it is a relatively common food item. (The argument was made that you can’t find it at Food King or Amazon. Yet Amazon owns Whole Foods and you can find it at Whole Foods.) But the bottom line was it’s a safe tuber therefore safe to use in animals- as in dog and cat food.
Several stalemates were once again stalemated.
It’s been five years and regulators have not yet defined HPP. High Pressure Processing. It’s been used in the raw pet food industry for many years now. Yet it’s not defined. Even though FDA inspectors tell raw companies that their food needs to be HPPed. Small controversy relates to the term erroneously being called high-pressure pasteurization by the public. We’re not going to die on that sword. We will be happy to have high pressure processing defined.
Sadly, there are representatives of the conventional pet food industry, who don’t understand why we are defining HPP. It’s odd because there are over 60 process feed terms defined in the AAFCO official publication. What is a process feed term? HPP is an example. As is cooked, chopped, sieved, refined, rolled. These are all examples of process feed terms already defined. That’s OK. We understand the true pushback from the conventional industry is reluctance to accept the rapid growth of the fresh pet food industry.
Along those lines of reluctant to accept change, the other controversial discussion had to do with whether AAFCO should discuss the creation of senior nutrient profile profiles. Currently they are no official senior profiles. There are certainly pet food companies who claim that they are feeding the mature adult. Or the senior. But the public doesn’t know what nutrient profiles the companies are using. Are the manufacturers providing more protein or less? In a presentation by an expert nutritionist, seniors need one and a half times more protein than mature adults!
A senior animal is in the last 25% of its life. So for a Chihuahua who lives 18 years, that’s a 14-year-old Chi. For a Great Dane who lives eight years, that’s a six-year-old dog.
In spite of pushback from the conventional industry and, surprisingly, the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine, there will be a work group to decide whether or not AAFCO should discuss this. Yes. It is a step-wise deliberative process. First a work group to decide whether or not to discuss it. And if the answer to that group is yes, then there will be a work group to discuss it. And then a work group to implement it. It being senior pet nutrient profiles.
But what’s the real takeaway for members of NexGen? There are some good opportunities out there! Senior nutrient profiles would be just one. For both cats and dogs. Modernized processes to minimally degrade nutrients in pet food? That is another one at which our members excel. And they are developing new techniques every day. As the techniques are developed, Next Gen will get them defined for you, even if it takes eight years.
