High Hygiene for Direct Contact Pet Food?

Hi guys. We produce packaging labels and pouches with indirect contact with food (low hygiene). I got asked this question today. "I know we can't do direct contact with food for humans without the High Hygiene, but what about dog food in our pouches." I instinctively said that it is still classed as food and needs to be High Hygiene so no we cant do that. But then I started to doubt myself and googled trying to find a reference to it confirm my response without success and I couldn't see any specific reference to it in the BRC for packaging issue 6.  Does anyone have any know if I was right or wrong?

Hi Robsip66,

You are currently producing packaging materials not intended for food contact use.  

The minute you start packing pet food, I would expect you to be certified to BRC version 8 Food safety.

Pet food must be packed in packaging intended for direct contact with food.

Hi chris@crepecuisine

We would not be packing the pet food our selves, just producing pouches for the manufacture of the pet food to fill into.

But your answer reflects how i thought it would be, food is food and BRC does not distinguish between human and animal food stuffs.

It's interesting that the glossary to the Packaging standard defines a "hygiene sensitive product" as: A product intended for human consumption or that comes into contact with the body; for example, by application to the skin. (my emphasis added).

This would seem to preclude pet food, although references within the standard seem to largely refer to "food or other hygiene-sensitive products".

I agree that most probably direct contact with pet food would fall into the high-hygiene regime, but it's more ambiguous than it perhaps should be.

You could always pop a question onto BRC Participate, and if you're thinking of adding product then it's probably also worth asking your cert body for their interpretation, as they'll be the ones auditing it.