BUZZWORDS DESCRIBING PET FOODS: DECIPHERING FACT FROM FICTION TO INTERPRET MYSTERIOUS MARKET CLAIMS JULIE CHURCHILL DVM, PHD, DACVN University of Minnesota College of Veterinary Medicine, Veterinary Clinical Science Department In this complimentary VETgirl-Hill’s Pet Nutrition webinar entitled “Nutritional BUZZwords describing pet food: What’s meaningful or what’s just malarkey?”, Julie Churchill, DVM, PhD, DACVN reviews persuasive buzzwords used in marketing terms about ingredients, nutrition and pet food products, which make it difficult for even the best-intentioned pet owner to make good decisions. Learn how your staff can play a vital role in answering client questions and help pet owners be able to select what is truly the best food for their pet – not just a product with the best marketing and buzzwords.
KEY HIGHLIGHTS
HOW TO DECIPHER INFORMATION ABOUT A PET FOOD TO MAKE A DIET RECOMMENDATION Making a decision about what to feed their pet has become even more complicated for pet owners whose goal is often to feed the best food. Clients can bombard the veterinarian and veterinary staff with questions about pet food. With almost 5000 different product labels on the market it is inevitable the veterinary healthcare team (VHCT) will be asked about a product they are not familiar with. Advice and information recommending the best food is readily available almost anywhere; from trainers to pet food retailers, from magazines, internet sources and social media. However, these voices can be strongly biased and may compete with the veterinarian healthcare team’s advice. There is no single ‘best’ food for all pets since optimal nutrition depends on several things such as life stage, body condition, appetite, activity (or sedentary lifestyle), environment and health status. Pet owners frequently make their decisions based on the marketing claims rather than objective nutritional information. Therefore,
veterinary professionals need to be competent and confident in evaluating new or less familiar products in order to make nutritional recommendations for their patients and help owners make sound nutritional decisions for their pet. Although there are significant limitations to evaluating a pet food, the label is a good place to start, and important for the veterinary teams to understand because pet owners make their choices based on label information and have many questions about what they read on the petfood label. All pet food labels are required to include the following 9 items:
1. Product Name, food type 2.Net weight 3.Nutritional statement (adequacy claim or ‘AAFCO’ statement) 4. Basis of nutrition claim; life stage 5. Ingredient list 6.Guaranteed analysis (% nutrient content as fed) 7. Feeding directions 8.Manufacturer or distributor name and address 9.Universal product code A systematic approach to evaluating labels is a useful first step in assessing a product for a patient. (continued)
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