New design, old recipe?

We are often asked why some information, such as feeding recommendations or ingredients, changes and whether this always means that the composition has also changed. In this blog post, we would like to explain the background to such changes on the packaging:

Basically, you will find - among other information - the following information on the packaging:

• the feeding recommendation,
• the ingredients list and
• the added nutrients, the so-called nutritional additives.

INGREDIENTS

The ingredients can be declared including or excluding the water content.

The raw materials used are listed in descending order. Only the ingredients that appear in the product name need to be advertised as a percentage. Example: Sensitive with lupin protein : Here the amount of lupine must be listed as a percentage in the ingredients list.

ADDITIVES

There are regulations for additives which are either mandatory or voluntary and which are listed on the packaging. Additives with a legal maximum amount or amino acids, for example, must always be declared. Substances without a legal maximum amount, e.g. B vitamins, do not have to be declared. This means that in addition to those declared, a number of other additives can be included - such as B vitamins. Important: nutritional additives are exclusively nutrients that have been added to the feed, not actual analytical data.

For recipe protection reasons, many manufacturers do not list all ingredients in percentage terms and also limit the list of additives. As part of our design relaunch, we have also adjusted some information:

Because some of the product names have changed, different ingredients are now advertised as percentages than before. In addition, the ingredients are now listed without the water content.

However, none of this has any influence on the recipe - it has remained the same. The nutritional additives are of course still added. They are just no longer all listed individually.

Overall, the composition of our wet food has not been changed; it is merely an adjustment of the information on the packaging.

FEEDING RECOMMENDATION

The feeding recommendation depends on various factors, such as the energy density and protein content of the food. Since the amounts of nutrients naturally contained in the ingredients can change, it is sometimes necessary to recalculate the feeding recommendations.

The fact that feeding recommendations change at all (despite the same recipe) has to do with an optimized calculation of nutrient intake, for example with regard to the supply of crude protein and energy.

Among other things, we took into account possible influences on the apparent digestibility of crude protein and energy due to the higher crude fiber content in vegan recipes and included safety margins.

Crude fiber also plays an important role in the dog's diet, especially for the microbiome. For this reason, the fiber content was maintained and the feeding recommendation was adjusted.

It should also be noted that an oversupply of some nutrients can also lead to problems. "More" nutrients is therefore not automatically "better". We always incorporate the latest results from research and development into our product development.

If you have any further questions on the subject, please feel free to contact our veterinarians at tierarzt@vegdog.de or watch the associated video on YouTube: