What Do the AAFCO Packaging Changes Mean for the Industry?

Big changes are coming for pet food processors.

In July, the Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) unveiled a six-year plan to make pet food labels more consistent and easier for consumers to understand. It’ll be a lot of work for Bill Barr clients, but in the end, we think it’s a positive development.

According to AAFCO, “The passage of the revised Model Regulations for Pet Food and Specialty Pet Food sets a new standard for pet food manufacturers and distributors to follow. Feed regulatory professionals across the United States and Canada worked cooperatively with consumers and professionals within the pet food industry on a strategic course to ensure pet food labels provide a more comprehensive view of the product.”

It’s the first major update to AAFCO label guidelines in more than 40 years, and anything that makes the end-product more appealing to consumers will, in the end, be better for the industry. Happier consumers equal more sales, after all.

This change has been a long time coming, and it doesn’t come out of nowhere. It’s based on deep consumer research that AAFCO conducted as early as 2015, after a rush of consumers requesting transparency and easier-to-understand labels. In the years since, AAFCO conducted multiple rounds of research where they discovered exactly what consumers would change on pet food labels. The feedback resulted in the following label changes, which will need to be implemented by 2030.

These won’t be simple changes to implement. Some of our customers have hundreds of SKUs, and making accurate changes to product packaging can be a full-time job under normal circumstances. AAFCO’s generous six-year implementation period provides enough runway so that most companies won’t have to scramble, but it’s still major changes to every product package that you offer.

Bill Barr Can Help With the Workload

While we can’t help you with your packaging updates, we can help you with other areas of your business so that you can devote resources to the AAFCO alterations. Our dedicated sourcing services can free up multiple staff members to work on other things. We handle the “bottom” 80 percent of your ingredients list so you can focus on the top 20 percent. That means we coordinate with suppliers to source, provide QA and make sure the bulk of your ingredients are up to regulations. And that they match what your new labels say!

We also offer comprehensive inventory management. We’ll handle the storage, transportation, inventory and re-orders for you. Bill Barr’s inventory management services take that weight off your shoulders so you can better use your own resources. With fewer staff and few work hours dedicated to logistics, you can devote more energy to the things that matter.

What’s Good for the Consumer Is Good for the Industry

No one likes to be told what to do, and regulations are always a headache to deal with. But in the case of the AAFCO major label changes, we feel that the heart is in the right place. These changes are dictated by the consumers of our products, and, in the end, that can only foster goodwill.

Bill Barr will help you in any way we can. Just drop us a line!