AAFCO Feeding Trials: Why They Matter When Choosing Raw Pet Food
If you feed raw or are considering raw dog food or raw cat food, you've probably seen the phrase “complete and balanced.” But there's another question worth asking when comparing raw pet food companies:
Has this food undergone an AAFCO feeding trial?
AAFCO feeding trials aren't required for every complete and balanced pet food. That's what makes them worth understanding. When a pet food company chooses to conduct one, it's taking an additional step to evaluate what happens when dogs or cats actually eat the diet.
At Green Juju, we believe thoughtful formulation should be backed by thoughtful evaluation. That’s why we chose to put our food through an AAFCO feeding trial — and why we were equally thoughtful about how we did it.
Our feeding trial was conducted with pets living at home with their families, not laboratory beagles housed specifically for research. The dogs ate Green Juju as part of their normal lives, in their own homes, with the people who care for them.
For us, it was important that the way we conducted the trial reflected the same care and intention we put into making our food.
A feeding trial doesn't prove that one pet food is the “best.” But for pet parents looking for evidence behind a food, it can provide another useful data point — and another question worth asking when deciding what belongs in their pet’s bowl.
What Is an AAFCO Feeding Trial?
AAFCO, the Association of American Feed Control Officials, develops model standards and procedures used in pet food regulation in the United States.
An AAFCO feeding trial is a standardized protocol in which a diet is actually fed to dogs or cats. The animals are monitored according to specified criteria to evaluate the diet's nutritional adequacy.
This is different from evaluating a food based on its formulation alone.
A food may contain the expected amounts of protein, fat, vitamins and minerals on paper. But those nutrients ultimately need to be consumed and utilized by the animal.
A feeding trial adds another question to the evaluation:
What happens when animals actually eat this food?
Are AAFCO Feeding Trials Required for Raw Pet Food?
A pet food can generally substantiate a “complete and balanced” nutritional adequacy claim in two ways: by meeting the applicable AAFCO Dog or Cat Food Nutrient Profile or by successfully completing an animal feeding trial using AAFCO procedures.
That means a raw pet food labeled complete and balanced has not necessarily undergone a feeding trial.
Formulating a food to meet an AAFCO nutrient profile is a recognized method of establishing nutritional adequacy. A feeding trial simply provides an additional type of evidence.
For Green Juju, taking that additional step was important. We believe in the nutritional power of thoughtfully selected, whole-food ingredients, and we also believe in using science to evaluate the food we make.
Why AAFCO Feeding Trials Matter for Raw Feeding
Raw diets can be nutritionally complex. Meat, organs, bone and other whole-food ingredients naturally provide many nutrients, but their inclusion alone doesn't guarantee that a finished diet supplies every essential nutrient in appropriate amounts.
Careful formulation and nutrient analysis matter.
An AAFCO feeding trial goes a step further by providing information from animals actually consuming the finished diet.
Instead of relying exclusively on the question, “Should this formula provide adequate nutrition?”, a feeding trial also examines how animals fare while eating it under an established protocol.
For research-minded raw feeders, that's meaningful information.
Not every raw pet food company conducts AAFCO feeding trials. When a company chooses to invest in one, it has taken an additional step to generate evidence about its food beyond formulation alone.
How Green Juju Approached Our Feeding Trial
Choosing to conduct a feeding trial was important to us. So was choosing an approach we could feel good about.
Rather than conducting our trial with dogs housed in a laboratory environment specifically for research, Green Juju’s feeding trial included pets who continued living at home with their families throughout the trial.
They ate Green Juju in their own homes as part of their everyday lives while participating in the established feeding trial protocol.
This approach allowed us to evaluate our food through an AAFCO feeding trial while staying true to something that matters deeply to us: the wellbeing of the animals involved.
It reflects how we think about Green Juju more broadly. We care about what goes into our food, why it’s there and how we make the decisions behind it. Completing a feeding trial was another opportunity to bring that same thoughtfulness to how we evaluate our food.
Do AAFCO Feeding Trials Prove a Raw Food Is Better?
No. A feeding trial should be viewed as one piece of evidence, not a universal stamp of quality.
AAFCO feeding trials are designed to evaluate nutritional adequacy under specific conditions. They aren't necessarily long-term studies comparing one pet food with another throughout an animal's life.
Still, the limitations of feeding trials don't make them meaningless.
For pet parents comparing two raw foods, knowing that one has been fed to animals and evaluated under a standardized protocol may reasonably factor into the decision.
It can also be worth asking how that feeding trial was conducted. For us, both the evidence generated through the trial and the way we chose to conduct it matter.
What This Means for Green Juju
At Green Juju, we believe pet parents deserve more than a formula that looks good on paper. That's why we've taken the additional step of putting our food through an AAFCO feeding trial and successfully meeting the trial's requirements.
And we did it in a way that reflects our values: with pets living at home with their families.
Passing an AAFCO feeding trial doesn't mean any food is perfect, nor does it replace our other commitments to thoughtful formulation, ingredient quality, food safety and quality control. What it does mean is that we've chosen to go beyond what's required to provide pet parents with additional information and confidence when choosing a complete and balanced raw diet.
For us, the feeding trial is another way to put our philosophy into practice: don't just formulate with intention. Test, evaluate and continue learning from the food we're making for pets — and be thoughtful about how we do it.
