The manufacturing company uses claims to send a clear (positive) message to the buyer or user of animal feed about specific properties of the feed in question.
A company can draw attention (claim) to the presence or absence of a specific substance in the animal feed, to specific nutritional properties or procedures, or a specific function using the label or marketing methods.
In order to present a claim on animal feed, a company must comply with Article 13 of (Regulation 767/2009/EC). on the marketing and use of feed. As of 1 September 2010, this Regulation has allowed claims to be stated on animal feed labels. The specifics of claim evaluation have been left to individual member states by the European Commission.
In the Netherlands, Article 13 has been elaborated as the Guidance on the substantiation of claims made on animal nutrition. This document was drafted by the Ministry of Economic Affairs in July 2013 and serves as a national guideline for the use and substantiation of claims on animal feed labels.
The Guidance was updated in June 2014 (version 1.1). Version 1.2 was published in August 2016. Annex VII of the Guidance shows the most important changes of version 1.2 as compared to version 1.1.
Retrospective verification
A claim does not have to be approved in advance. However, you must have scientific underpinning backing the claim if you display it.
The competent authority in the Netherlands regarding claims on animal feeds is the Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA). The NVWA may request the claim dossier at any time for verification.
If you have questions after reading the information above, please contact the NVWA or the Veterinary Medicinal Products Unit.