PURR Act of 2024 — What You Need to Know

There’s legislation on the horizon that would affect every cat and dog food product on the market. Read on to learn about the PURR Act of 2024 and what it means for your business.

What is the PURR Act of 2024?

H.R.7380, the Pet Food Uniform Regulatory Reform Act of 2024 (PURR) was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives on February 15, 2024. It is a proposed amendment to the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.

The PURR Act would “clarify and update the authority of the Food and Drug Administration to ensure national uniformity in the regulation of the marketing and labeling of companion animal pet food, and for other purposes.”

In short, the PURR Act would establish federal regulations for pet food labels, marketing and ingredients.

What does the PURR Act do?

The PURR Act would give the FDA the authority to regulate pet food product ingredients, labeling and marketing statements.

Note that the PURR Act only concerns cat food and dog food. It doesn’t concern food for other pets like birds, rodents or reptiles (specialty pet food) or animal feed for livestock.

Ingredient Oversight

The first goal of the PURR Act concerns transparency into pet food product ingredients. If the PURR Act is passed into law, the FDA Center for Veterinary Medicine would start reviewing pet food ingredients and submit an annual report to Congress.

The PURR Act would also codify the pet food ingredients that are deemed generally recognized as safe (GRAS) by AAFCO Official Publication Chapter 6.

It’s important to point out that the PURR Act wouldn’t change the GRAS determination process, the AAFCO ingredient approval process, or the FDA’s regulation of pet food safety in any way. It would simply let the FDA collect data about pet food ingredients, and any actions they decide to take would be handled under future legislation.

Labeling Review

Currently, regulatory agencies across the U.S. are responsible for reviewing and approving pet food product labels before the product goes to market.

If the PURR Act becomes law, the FDA would conduct these label reviews instead. This would essentially create federal guidelines for labeling, rather than state-by-state guidelines.

Marketing Regulation

The final goal of the PURR Act is to regulate the marketing statements that pet food companies can make about their products.

Claims like “tartar control,” “human-grade” and “natural” are currently acceptable in marketing materials. These claims would continue to be acceptable under the PURR Act, but they would be regulated by the FDA Center for Veterinary Medicine.

What would pet food compliance look like under PURR?

Under the PURR Act, pet food companies would work with both the states and the FDA to get fully compliant.

Here’s a quick breakdown of which agency would be responsible for each step of compliance:

• Registration — states
• Ingredient Review — FDA/states*
• Label/Marketing Review — FDA
• Renewals — states
• Tonnage reporting — states

*The FDA would only be responsible for ingredient review for traditional pet food. The states would still handle ingredient review for specialty pet food and commercial feed for livestock.

When will PURR take effect?

It’s still not certain if the PURR Act will become law at all. The act was introduced in Congress on February 15, 2024 and there’s no set timeline for when they will decide on the bill’s fate.

What does all of this mean for my business?

If you partner with Pet Food Compliance, the PURR Act doesn’t change a lot for you. PFC will continue to act as your single point of contact, and handle all of the regulatory changes that would come if the PURR Act is passed into law.

If you handle pet food compliance on your own, though, getting compliant gets a little trickier. On top of the various state requirements, you’ll also have to submit your ingredients and packaging to the FDA for review.

If you don’t want to sweat the finer details of pet food compliance, you’ve got our full support. Partner with PFC and we’ll navigate the PURR Act and every other regulation to make sure your products are fully compliant across the nation.