Spring 2018 Feed claims Avoid having to eat your words Feed business operators must substantiate the claims they make for a product or risk misleading their customers As with claims made on food products for human consumption, the labelling and presentation of animal feeds must not claim that they will prevent, treat or cure a disease. Unlike with food legislation, however, there is no list of authorised claims to which to refer. Instead, the labelling and presentation of feed may draw attention to: the presence or absence of a substance; to a specific nutritional characteristic or process; or to a specific function related to any of these, provided that: n the claim is objective, verifiable by the competent authorities, and understandable to the user of the feed n the person responsible for the labelling gives at the request of the competent authority scientific substantiation of the claim, either by reference to publicly available evidence or documented company research The Animal Feed (Composition, Marketing and Use) (England) Regulations 2015 give trading standards the responsibility of enforcing Regulation (EC) No767/2009. This states that: Scientific substantiation should be the main factor to be taken into account for the purpose of making claims in respect of feed, and feed business operators making such claims should be able to substantiate them. A claim may be scientifically substantiated by taking into account the totality of the available scientific data, and by weighing the evidence. A product is medicinal by presentation if it gives the well-informed, average person the impression that it treats or prevents disease Where it is concluded that a claim cannot be substantiated sufficiently, the labelling in respect of that claim shall be considered misleading. While trading standards plays an enforcement role here, other regulatory bodies have an interest in this area. The Veterinary Medicines Directorate (VMD) is responsible for products marketed as veterinary medicines. A product is medicinal by presentation if it gives the well-informed, average person the impression that it treats or prevents disease. This may be by advertising, labelling or even route of administration. A feed business that wishes to market a product as a veterinary medicine must contact the VMD for authorisation to do so, to avoid contravening the Veterinary Medicines Regulations (VMR) 2013. The VMD can be contacted by email or by phone on (01932) 336911. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) investigates complaints about breaches of the Code of Advertising Practice. Two ASA rulings that may be of interest to feed businesses are those on Freestep Ltd (18 May 2016) and on Greencoat Ltd t/a Natural Animal Feeds (11 May 2016). Another consideration is whether the feed is intended for a particular nutritional use (PARNUT) in which case, it can only be marketed as such if the use is included in the list of intended uses and meets the essential characteristics for the respective particular nutritional purpose set out in that list. Credit: Kath Simpson Image: istock / SolStock / pedphoto36pm Further guidance can be found in the EU code of good labelling practice for compound feed for food producing animals, and the FEDIAF code of good labelling practice for pet food, which can be freely downloaded. For further information, please contact your local Trading Standards Service