The Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) — the body whose model regulations most states adopt for pet food and animal feed labeling — has rolled out its first major overhaul of pet food labels in more than 40 years. If you buy dog or cat food here regularly, you'll start seeing the new format show up on bags as manufacturers transition over.
What's actually on the label now
The old label format has been criticized for years as cluttered and hard to compare across brands — a wall of guaranteed analysis numbers and ingredient lists that don't tell you much at a glance. AAFCO's Pet Food Label Modernization (PFLM) project reworks that format to be more consumer-friendly, with clearer nutritional information and calorie statements that are easier to compare bag to bag.
AAFCO has also approved a new regulatory pathway for animal food ingredients, developed with Kansas State University's Olathe Innovation Campus, aimed at getting new ingredients through review and to market more efficiently than the prior FDA-only process.
What it means for you
Nothing changes overnight. Manufacturers don't have to pull existing packaging — you'll see old and new label formats side by side on our shelves for a while as brands transition on their own timelines. When you do see the new format, the label should actually be easier to read, not harder: clearer calorie-per-cup information and nutritional claims that mean what they say.
If you're comparing two bags of dog or cat food, the label is still your best source of truth — ingredient list, guaranteed analysis, and the AAFCO nutritional adequacy statement (the line confirming the food is "complete and balanced" for a specific life stage). That statement doesn't go away under the new rules; it's still the thing to check.
The takeaway
This is a regulatory cleanup, not a recall or a safety issue — nothing here means you need to switch what you're feeding. If you want the details straight from the source, AAFCO's own site has the current model regulations. And if a label ever looks confusing, that's what we're here for — bring the bag in and we'll walk through it with you.