Starting a pet food business

Starting a business from scratch is never easy, and pet food production and sales has a whole host of complexities but, we can help you.

Before manufacturing any pet food, your business must be registered or approved by Trading Standards.

Additionally, legislation requires the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) to approve manufacturing premises where pet food uses or incorporates products of animal origin - for example, eggs, meat, milk, butter, honey.

Further guidance on using animal by-products to make pet food can found on the GOV.UK website.

There is a statutory fee for obtaining APHA approval.

Pet food, including treats, must be labelled with information such as the type of feed ('complete feed', 'complementary feed'), name and address of the business, batch number, net quantity, list of feed additives and the moisture content if it exceeds 14%. In addition to this, there are further mandatory labelling requirements.

If you buy in prepacked containers or packages, which you then offer for sale, these should have been labelled already by the manufacturer or supplier, as above.

Guidance on all of the above, and more, can be found on the Business Companion website.

Contact us

For further advice, please contact the Trading Standards team.

Email: tradingstandards@suffolk.gov.uk

Telephone: 01473 264859