In many parts of the world, there is a lack of oversight and governing bodies pertaining to veterinary foodstuffs. The American Association of Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) is based in the United States. For countries that do not follow AAFCO guidelines, the National Research Council, which is also based in the United States, provides minimum and adequate nutrient profile recommendations that diets should follow. AAFCO guidelines are based on these evidence-based recommendations, with an additional 25% buffer for bioavailability in diet formulation.
Counterparts to the above United States-based nutritional guidelines also exist in some parts of the world. Like AAFCO, FEDIAF, the European Pet Food Industry Federation, produces labeling guidelines. In Australia, nutritional standards are based on the AAFCO profile, but for therapeutic diets the European PARNUTS* regulation is employed. The Russian veterinary authority, Rosselhoznadzor, has specified nutritional profiles for food products for export to Russia, which are a 1:1 copy of the FEDIAF profiles. The Mexican and Japanese industries follow AAFCO profiles. China is working on nutritional standards that may be based on FEDIAF provisions, and the Brazilian trade association, ABINPET, will soon publish a new pet food manual.
Although not a regulatory body, the WSAVA Global Nutrition Committee developed the Nutritional Assessment Guidelines and their subsequent Nutritional Toolkit to address the need for nutrition to play a more central and consistent role in providing optimal pet health by promoting nutritional assessment as the fifth vital sign in every veterinary examination.
*PARNUTS is the term for foodstuffs for particular nutritional uses. These have a special composition or manufacturing process that distinguishes them from foodstuffs for normal consumption.