Written by Anna Hardcastle, Nutritionist.
Last week I looked at designing, marketing and making feed. This week I will be looking at ingredients allowed for feeding food-producing animals.
How do I know the ingredients I want to use are allowed to be fed to chickens?
Some ingredients are only licensed for feeding to certain species of food-producing animals. Regulation 767/2009 on the placing on the market and use of feed article 3 defines compound feeds as a mixture of two or more feed materials with or without feed additives, and defines feed materials as products of vegetable or animal origin with a purpose of meeting animal nutritional needs in their natural state, fresh or preserved. Article 24 states there is a community catalogue of feed materials (Regulation 68/2013) and I can check this to see if my ingredients are included. If they are, they can be fed to any species:
Feed additives are subject to a different regulation, Regulation 1831/2003 on additives for use in animal nutrition. Article 2a lists these as being substances, microorganisms or preparations other than feed materials which are intentionally added to feed or water in order to perform certain functions including to favourably affect the characteristics of feed and animal products, favourably affect animal production, performance and welfare, and, satisfy the nutritional needs of animals. Article 9 states that all feed additives must be authorised by the EU Commission and article 17 states there is a register of feed additives, this can be accessed via the EFSA feed additives website to check ingredients:
Answer: These ingredients can be used in my new product.
Next time – how much of a feed additive can I use?
