FEDIAF 2025: Is there anything new?

Raw Feeding

Nov 21

Written By The Little Carnivore - Coline

The FEDIAF has published its updated nutritional guidelines for 2025, so it is time to look together at what changed this year. The previous update was in 2024 and you can find a summary of the modifications in this article. If you don’t know what the FEDIAF is, I will also explain it and its role in this article

What is the FEDIAF?

FEDIAF is the French acronym for “Fédération Européenne de l'Industrie des Aliments pour Animaux Familiers” which means in English the European Pet Food Industry Federation. As its name suggests, it is the trade body representing the European pet food industry.
The FEDIAF is composed of 15 trade association members from European countries (and representing 375 pet food companies), and 5 individual pet food company members:

Affinity Petcare,
Hill’s Pet Nutrition,
Mars PetCare,
Nestlé Purina Petcare,
Wellpet.

So, in other words, it is the European pet food lobby.
The FEDIAF publishes various guides, guidelines, and factsheets for the pet food industry, EU authorities, as well as for pet guardians.
Here are some of the guides : Guide to Good Practice for the Manufacture of Safe Pet Foods, Guide to Good Practice for Communication on Pet Food, and the Nutritional Guidelines for Complete and Complementary Pet Foods.

A common misconception about the nutritional guidelines of the FEDIAF

It is often believed that pet food companies from the EU have to respect the nutritional guidelines of the FEDIAF in their pet food. However, while the FEDIAF works with the European Commission, and its guidelines are designed to complement EU regulations, the FEDIAF is not a regulatory authority. Therefore, it does not enforce the guidelines or any pet food regulations, and its guidelines are not legally binding.

One of the goals of the FEDIAF is the self-regulation of the industry, so members of the FEDIAF follow (or should follow) these different guidelines in their pet food.

What are the nutritional guidelines?

The nutritional guidelines provide information on the nutrient levels required in commercial pet food for cats and dogs, depending on their life stage, activity levels, etc.
They also include various information regarding pet nutrition such as a glossary, ingredient information, energy requirements, body condition scores, etc.
These guidelines are based on the NRC recommendations (National Research Council, which we talked about in a previous article), as well as recent scientific studies. They are peer-reviewed by the Scientific Advisory Board, a group of independent European scientists working in academia or private consulting.
These guidelines are available for free on their website and are considered the industry standard for pet food in Europe.

FEDIAF vs AAFCO vs NRC

There are 3 nutritional standards commonly used for cats and dogs, namely the FEDIAF, AAFCO, and NRC. So, let’s quickly compare the differences between the three.

The AAFCO (Association of American Feed Control Officials) could be considered the American equivalent of the FEDIAF, however, the AAFCO is a non-profit organization that doesn’t represent the pet food industry. Like the FEDIAF, the AAFCO is not a regulatory body, but many American states adopt its nutritional standards as regulatory.
Both the FEDIAF and AAFCO nutritional standards are designed for the pet food industry, which is why they often include safety margins to take into account feed processing.
They are also regularly updated, and they are both based on the NRC.

The NRC (National Research Council) is a non-profit, private organization that publishes the textbook “Nutrient Requirements of Dogs and Cats”. It is a scientific review of the literature on canine and feline nutrition.
The purpose of the NRC is different from the AAFCO and FEDIAF as it doesn’t aim to provide guidelines specifically for the pet food industry, but rather a state-of-the-art publication on the scientific knowledge of dogs and cats nutrition. While the FEDIAF and AAFCO are relatively short, around 100 pages, the NRC is a very dense book of more than 400 pages. The last time the NRC was updated was in 2006.

The three nutritional standards each have their advantages and disadvantages and can be relevant depending on the situation.

What’s new in 2025?

The changes in the 2025 version concern the formatting of the tables: Table VII-6, Table VII-7, Table VII-8b, Table VII-9, Table VII-10, and Table VII-12.

In the tables VII-6, VII-7, VII-9 regarding energy requirements of dogs and cats, for a better understanding mathematical notations were changed in the table headings:

2024: kcal ME/kg ^0.75

2025: kcal ME per kg BW ^0.75

Similarly in table VII-8b and VII-12, some notations were changed:

2024: 25 kcal/100 g BW

2025: 25 x (g BW/100)

In some notations “kg” was added:

2024: (254.1 – 135.0 × [actual BW/expected mature BW]) × actual BW ^0.75

2025: [254.1 – 135.0 × (actual kg BW/expected mature kg BW)] × actual kg BW ^0.75

Or the mathematical symbols were changed :

2024: 132 kcal/kg BW ^0.75

2025: 132 x kg BW ^0.75

In the table VII-10 the missing headings “kcal” and “kJ” were added in the tables in addition to similar notation changes as in the other tables.

These changes are described as “Clarifications in annexes to support manufacturers and professionals in applying the guidelines.”, however, they are very minor changes.

Despite mentioning in their press release that in 2025 the FEDIAF “updated nutrient tables to maintain accuracy with the latest data”, the last time the nutrient tables changed in the guidelines was in 2020.

In addition, the press release also mentions that “by integrating the latest science, the 2025 edition reinforces industry-wide commitment to balanced diets and pet wellbeing.” In my opinion, minor changes in mathematical notations would not qualify as “integrating the latest science” which is not reassuring if it represents their commitment to balanced diets and pet wellbeing. While I agree that the FEDIAF guidelines are an incredible resource for the pet food industry, their press release regarding updates seems to have a tendency to exaggerate.

I hope this article was useful, whether you wanted to better understand what the FEDIAF is or if you were interested in the (very minor) changes of the 2025 updated version.