There is a sentence on the back of almost every bag of cat food sold in Singapore, and almost nobody reads it.
It is not the ingredient list and it is not the guaranteed analysis. It is one line, usually in small type, that says how the manufacturer decided this food is complete and balanced. There are two ways to decide that. They are not equally strong, the label is required to say which one was used, and once you know how to spot it you cannot unsee it.
This article is about that one line. It ends with our own bag, where the answer is not entirely flattering.
First: Singapore does have a rule, and it points at AAFCO
Most people assume pet food is unregulated here. It is not quite that.
Pet food in Singapore is handled by the Animal & Veterinary Service (AVS) under NParks — not the Singapore Food Agency, whose own guidance states plainly that pet food is not animal feed. There is no licence needed to import pet food, but every consignment needs a Cargo Clearance Permit, and imports from a non-scheduled country such as China need a pre-import declaration accepted by AVS before any of it moves.
The part that matters for this article is the labelling requirement. AVS requires the packaging to carry, in English, the manufacturer's name and address, the importer's name and address, the manufacture and expiry dates, feeding directions, the complete ingredient list with the type of meat specified, and:
"Its guaranteed analysis in a complete and balanced diet (must meet the internationally recommended nutritional standards eg. from the National Research Council and Association of American Feed Control Officials)."
So AAFCO is named in Singapore's own import guidance. Not as a certification you must hold — as the benchmark your numbers are expected to reach.
What AVS does not do is check it for you. There is no pre-market approval of a recipe, no Singapore nutrient table, and no required wording for a nutritional adequacy statement. That verification is left to the buyer, which is why it is worth ten minutes of your time.
The two ways to prove a food is complete and balanced
AAFCO recognises two routes, and the label wording is prescribed for each.
Route one: formulation
"(Name of product) is formulated to meet the nutritional levels established by the AAFCO Cat Food Nutrient Profiles for (life stage)."
This means somebody added up the nutrient content of every ingredient, at its inclusion rate, and showed on paper that the finished recipe contains every nutrient in the profile at or above the minimum. Around forty nutrients: crude protein, thirteen essential amino acids including taurine, two essential fatty acids, twelve minerals, and thirteen vitamins plus choline.
It is a real piece of work. It is also a calculation.
Route two: an animal feeding trial
"Animal feeding tests using AAFCO procedures substantiate that (Name of Product) provides complete and balanced nutrition for (life stage)."
For adult maintenance in cats, the AAFCO protocol requires a minimum of eight healthy adult cats at least one year old, at optimal body weight, fed the test diet for at least 26 weeks. At the end, four blood values plus whole blood taurine are measured. No individual cat may lose more than 15% of its starting body weight. No more than 25% of the cats may be removed for non-nutritional reasons — so at least six must finish.
Six months. Eight cats. Blood work.
Why the difference matters
The gap between the two is not pedantry, and the clearest statement of it comes from AAFCO itself:
"The AAFCO Dog and Cat Food Nutrient Profiles have been criticized and faulted for not explicitly indicating the apparent nutrient digestibility, sometimes called nutrient availability or bioavailability, required to make the listed concentrations adequate for meeting the animal's daily requirements."
Put plainly: a formulation shows a nutrient is in the bowl. A feeding trial shows something about whether the cat can actually use it. Extrusion temperature, protein source, fibre level, phytates and starch gelatinisation all affect absorption, and not one of them appears in a guaranteed analysis.
Tufts' veterinary nutrition service puts foods with feeding-trial statements ahead of formulated-only ones. NC State calls the feeding trial "the gold standard" and formulation "good, but not quite."
The counterweight, in fairness: an AAFCO feeding trial is eight cats for six months with a narrow set of blood values. It is not a large clinical study, and passing one is not proof of much beyond that threshold.
What the bags sold in Singapore actually say
We went and looked, in September 2026, at what is published for five dry cat foods on sale here — four of them competitors, one ours. What follows is what we could find published on manufacturer and Singapore retailer pages. Where we write "not found", it means we looked and could not find it, not that it does not exist. If any of these brands publishes a statement we missed, tell us and we will correct this page.
| Product | SG price/kg | How adequacy is substantiated, as published |
|---|---|---|
| Royal Canin Indoor 27 | ~S$15–22 | The pack sold here is the EU version. It carries the EU feed declaration "complete feed for cats" — no AAFCO statement of either kind. The US pack of the same product says "formulated to meet". |
| Hill's Science Diet Adult Optimal Care | ~S$16–25 | "Formulated to meet", per Singapore retailer listings. Note that the US Adult Chicken Recipe, and Hill's own SG page for Adult Indoor, carry the feeding-trial statement instead. |
| Aatas Cat Gourmet Delight | ~S$5.50–7 | "Formulated to meet" for adult maintenance. Published by one retailer; not on the brand's own site. |
| Kit Cat Chicken Cuisine | ~S$10.58–12.42 | Not found. We could not locate an AAFCO or FEDIAF statement on the brand site or any retailer page. Neither route is stated. |
| Kopipets Chicken & Fish | S$13.33 | Not on our bag either. See below — we are fixing it, and we are telling you what it will and will not say. |
Two things are worth pulling out of that table before we get to ourselves.
The first is that the most expensive food in the list is the one with no AAFCO statement at all, because the version sold in Singapore is the European pack and Europe does not require the disclosure. That is not a scandal — Royal Canin's formulation work is extensive and FEDIAF-referenced — but if you were paying a premium partly for documentation, the documentation you were picturing is not on that bag.
The second is that the same brand can use different routes in different markets. Hill's runs a 180-acre nutrition centre with around 450 cats, employs board-certified veterinary nutritionists, and puts feeding-trial statements on some products. The adult product most widely sold here is not one of them, while their Adult Indoor is. Worth checking which one you are holding.
Now ours
Our bag does not carry an AAFCO nutritional adequacy statement. It says "Complete & Balanced" and "For All Life Stages" without naming the standard those words are measured against. That is not enough, and it is our own product page, so it is our own fault.
Here is where we actually stand, with the arithmetic shown.
Do our numbers reach the AAFCO minimums?
Nutrient profiles are expressed on a dry matter basis, so a label figure has to be converted before it can be compared:
Dry matter value = as-fed value ÷ (100 − moisture %) × 100
Our declared moisture maximum is 10%, so dry matter is 90%. Converting our declared guaranteed analysis:
| Nutrient | Ours, dry matter | AAFCO adult minimum | AAFCO growth & reproduction minimum |
|---|---|---|---|
| Crude protein | 42.22% | 26.0% | 30.0% |
| Crude fat | 16.67% | 9.0% | 9.0% |
| Taurine (extruded) | 0.22% | 0.10% | 0.10% |
| Calcium | 1.33% | 0.6% | 1.0% |
| Phosphorus | 1.11% | 0.5% | 0.8% |
Every one of them clears both the adult and the growth minimum. The tightest is calcium, at 1.33 times the growth minimum. On the July batch measured values the margins are wider still: protein 43.00%, fat 18.67%, calcium 1.59%, phosphorus 1.46% on a dry matter basis, with a calcium to phosphorus ratio of 1.09 to 1. (AAFCO sets no Ca:P ratio for cats — that requirement exists for dogs. It is one of the most commonly misquoted things in this subject.)
Estimated energy density is around 3,692 kcal/kg by modified Atwater calculation, below the 4,000 kcal/kg that AAFCO profiles assume, so no energy correction applies. That estimate is ours and uses our label fibre maximum rather than a measured fibre value; we have asked the manufacturer for the formal figure.
So why can't we print the statement yet?
Because five nutrients out of roughly forty is not a formulation. The profile also covers twelve more amino acids, linoleic and arachidonic acid, potassium, sodium, chloride, magnesium, iron, copper, manganese, zinc, iodine, selenium, and thirteen vitamins plus choline. Our manufacturer holds those figures. We have asked for the full calculation on a dry matter basis, with the processing and storage overages AAFCO requires — thiamine alone can lose up to 90% in extrusion, so a formulation that ignores overage is a formulation that fails on the shelf.
When that arrives and the numbers hold, the bag can carry the standard wording, and we will say which life stage it covers. If any nutrient does not clear, we will say that instead.
Three things we are not going to claim
We have not run a feeding trial, and we do not currently plan to. Eight cats for 26 weeks is beyond what we can run at our size. Hill's can. That is a genuine advantage they have over us and no amount of arithmetic on our side changes it.
Our batch numbers are the factory's own. The July 2026 figures on our product page — protein 40.76%, fat 17.7%, moisture 5.2%, ash 8.6%, calcium 1.51%, phosphorus 1.38%, each with its GB/T method number — come from the manufacturer's in-house inspection under its own seal. They are more than most sellers publish. They are still the factory checking its own work. Independent testing is being arranged and every result will be published here, including any that is unfavourable.
Crude protein is a nitrogen measurement. GB/T 6432, like the Kjeldahl and Dumas methods used everywhere else, measures total nitrogen and multiplies by 6.25. It cannot distinguish protein nitrogen from any other nitrogen, which is the mechanism behind the 2007 melamine adulteration. Our 40.76% is a real number produced by a real method, and it is still a number about nitrogen. Amino acid analysis is on the list for the independent panel for exactly this reason.
One phrase to be suspicious of
If you ever see "AAFCO approved", "AAFCO certified" or "AAFCO tested" on a bag or a listing, that seller does not understand the thing they are citing. AAFCO's own words:
"AAFCO does not approve, certify or otherwise endorse pet foods. There is no AAFCO-approved pet food."
AAFCO is an association of state feed-control officials. It publishes model regulations and nutrient profiles. It does not inspect anyone's factory, review anyone's label, or certify anyone's product. Membership is not even open to manufacturers — it is limited to government regulators. The statement is a disclosure with prescribed wording that any manufacturer anywhere may make truthfully if the formulation genuinely meets the profile. It is not a badge, and there is no fee.
How to check any bag yourself
Six steps, and you can do them standing in the aisle.
- Find the adequacy statement. Small type, usually near the feeding guide. If there is none, the bag is telling you something.
- Read which route it used. "Animal feeding tests using AAFCO procedures substantiate…" is the stronger sentence. "…is formulated to meet the nutritional levels established by…" is the common one.
- Check the life stage it names. "Maintenance" is adult only. "All life stages" includes growth, which has higher minimums — a kitten should not be on an adult-only food.
- Convert to dry matter before comparing anything. Divide by (100 − moisture) and multiply by 100. Comparing a dry food to a wet food on label percentages is meaningless without it.
- Treat "AAFCO approved" as a warning sign, not a reassurance.
- Ask the seller which route their food used. If they cannot answer, you have learned how well they know their own product. You have learned it about us too, until we publish ours.
If you want the companion pieces: How to Compare Cat Food in Singapore covers the guaranteed analysis panel itself, How to Read a Cat Food Can covers the protein arithmetic on wet food, and Grain-Free Cat Food and Heart Disease covers what the research does and does not show about pulses.
Every laboratory result we hold across the whole range, plus a plain table of what we have not tested, is on The numbers we publish. Our dry food sits there under "no third-party report yet", which is the honest heading for it today.
Regulatory and standards information is as published at the time of writing, September 2026. Sources: AVS/NParks guidance on importing pet food and its label requirements; SFA's statement that pet food is not animal feed; AAFCO Model Regulations PF4 and PF5, the AAFCO Cat Food Nutrient Profiles as published in AAFCO's own committee documents, and the AAFCO feeding protocol for adult maintenance in cats; AAFCO's published statements on its own role; Tufts Foster Hospital and NC State Veterinary Hospital nutrition guidance; and manufacturer and Singapore retailer product pages for the four competitor products named. Competitor prices are Singapore retailer listings in September 2026 and change frequently. The Kopipets figures are from our declared guaranteed analysis and the manufacturer's in-house batch inspection dated 18 July 2026; the dry matter conversions and the energy estimate are our own calculations, shown above so you can repeat them.
