A pet food company can add a new ingredient to your dog's bowl without ever telling the FDA it exists.
The loophole is called GRAS, short for generally recognized as safe, and Congress wrote it into food law in 1958. Under it, a company can hire its own experts, decide an ingredient is safe for its intended use, and start selling. Telling the agency has always been optional, and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said when the fix was announced that the FDA doesn't know the full universe of substances in the food supply.
In August the FDA proposed making that report mandatory, and you have until December 9 to tell the agency what you think.
How a new ingredient gets into pet food
There are three ways in, and they don't carry the same level of review.
A food additive petition. The company asks the FDA for approval and waits for the agency to review the safety data. It's the slowest and most expensive route.
An AAFCO ingredient definition. The Association of American Feed Control Officials keeps a list of defined feed ingredients that state regulators enforce, part of the same AAFCO rules that govern pet food labels. The FDA reviewed those definitions alongside AAFCO until it left that arrangement in October 2024.
GRAS. The company decides for itself that the ingredient is safe. It can tell the FDA through a voluntary notice program the agency opened for animal food in 2016, or it can say nothing at all.
The third door is the one this rule targets. A self-affirmed GRAS ingredient never has to cross an FDA desk. The company's own panel makes the call, the company keeps the paperwork, and nobody outside the building has to see the reasoning.
What the FDA proposed
The proposed rule ran in the Federal Register on Aug. 11, 2026, under docket FDA-2025-N-3262.
Any company that concludes a substance is GRAS for human or animal food would have to notify the FDA. That covers ingredients already on the market, along with new ones.
Animal food notices would have to name the target species and the use levels.
Ingredients already sold under a self-affirmed GRAS call would get a one-time streamlined filing: the substance, its intended use, and proof it's been sold across state lines. That filing asks for no safety data at first.
The rule would take effect 60 days after a final version is published, with companies given 18 months to comply.
Acting FDA Commissioner Kyle Diamantas said the change gives the agency "greater visibility into substances entering the food supply." It also reverses a position the FDA held for years, that a mandatory program would cost too much to run. Kennedy had directed the agency to find a way to end self-affirmed GRAS in March 2025.
The holes in the proposal
The rule pushes in the right direction, and it still leaves room for the old habits.
No direct penalty. A missing notice wouldn't make a food adulterated under the law. The FDA says it would weigh that failure when deciding which substances to review after they're already on shelves.
No waiting period. Companies could keep selling an ingredient while the FDA reviews its notice. The FDA says outright that it isn't proposing premarket approval.
A frozen AAFCO list. Ingredients in AAFCO's 2024 Official Publication would be exempt. Definitions approved after that through the new review AAFCO built with Kansas State University wouldn't be, so those ingredients could need a separate GRAS notice, and AAFCO says that mismatch grows with every new edition.
Laurie Beyranevand, a food law professor at Vermont Law and Graduate School, called the notice requirement "a relatively small burden for industry that provides traceability for the agency." Lawyers at Venable read it differently for big brands: "Companies with established product lines may face the largest compliance burden." The companies with the longest ingredient decks and the oldest self-affirmations have the most to file.
Why it matters for your dog's bowl
A bowl of meat, organs and bone carries a short list of things to account for. A bag of extruded kibble carries a much longer one.
Kibble depends on added substances to hold its shape, last on a shelf and taste good enough to eat. The flavor coatings sprayed on after extrusion are one example.
New ingredients keep arriving. A September palatability trial funded by MicroHarvest tested kibble that swapped out fish meal and part of the poultry meal for protein grown from microbes.
Every one of those substances comes in through one of the three doors. Right now, the cheapest door is the one with nobody watching.
AAFCO's label overhaul changes what's printed on the bag. The GRAS rule goes after the step that comes before the printing, which is who gets to call an ingredient safe in the first place.
How to comment before December 9
Pet owners can file comments, and the FDA has to consider every one that arrives on time.
Go to Regulations.gov and search docket FDA-2025-N-3262, then click Comment. The FDA's GRAS program page lists the docket and the mailing address for paper comments.
Get it in by 11:59 p.m. Eastern on Dec. 9. The FDA says late comments won't be considered.
Say you support mandatory GRAS notices for animal food. Ask the agency to fix the frozen AAFCO list so new ingredients get a real safety review, and ask that the streamlined filings for older ingredients be made public.
Write it in your own words. Two sentences count.
Who gets to decide
For 68 years the pet food industry has been allowed to grade its own homework on ingredient safety. AAFCO definitions lost their FDA partner in 2024, and self-affirmed GRAS never had one. A notification rule makes companies hand the homework in, with a name, a species and a use level attached, and that's more than your dog's bowl has had since 1958.
Sources
Federal Register, "Substances Generally Recognized as Safe," proposed rule, 91 FR 51834, Aug. 11, 2026. https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/08/11/2026-16296/substances-generally-recognized-as-safe
U.S. Food and Drug Administration, "Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) Notification Program" (animal food). https://www.fda.gov/animal-veterinary/animal-foods-feeds/generally-recognized-safe-gras-notification-program
Lisa Cleaver, PetfoodIndustry, "FDA to require GRAS notifications for animal food," 2026. https://www.petfoodindustry.com/safety-quality/pet-food-regulations/article/15833533/fda-to-require-gras-notifications-for-animal-food
Covington & Burling, "FDA Issues Proposed Rule on Substances Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS)," August 2026. https://www.cov.com/en/news-and-insights/insights/2026/08/fda-issues-proposed-rule-on-substances-generally-recognized-as-safe-gras
Beveridge & Diamond, "No More GRAS Self-Affirmations? FDA Proposes Mandatory GRAS Notifications," August 2026. https://www.bdlaw.com/publications/no-more-gras-self-affirmations-fda-proposes-mandatory-gras-notifications/
Wiley Rein, "FDA Proposes Mandatory GRAS Notification Framework," Aug. 18, 2026. https://www.wiley.law/alert-FDA-Proposes-Mandatory-GRAS-Notification-Framework
Haynes Boone, "Your Review and Input Is Needed: FDA's Mandate for GRAS Notices," 2026. https://www.haynesboone.com/news/alerts/your-review-and-input-is-needed-fdas-mandate-gras-notices
PetfoodIndustry, "Dogs, cats prefer microbial protein kibble in study," Sept. 24, 2026. https://www.petfoodindustry.com/nutrition/research-notes/news/15835855/dogs-cats-prefer-microbial-protein-kibble-in-study
