Fresh pet food is the fastest-growing choice for pet parents — and the least regulated, especially in Canada. The FPFA verifies the brands and manufacturers actually investing in quality, safety, and honest labeling.
The mark brands earn at our highest certification tier.
In the U.S., AAFCO gives "human grade" an enforced, verifiable meaning. AAFCO has no jurisdiction in Canada — and no Canadian body has taken its place. The result: the same claims, used improperly and deceptively, with no oversight of quality, safety, or whether the product inside matches the label. As fresh food becomes the category's growth leader across North America, that gap puts pets — and the families who handle their food — at risk.
"Human Grade" and "Complete & Balanced" carry real, enforced meaning under AAFCO in the U.S. With no AAFCO jurisdiction in Canada, the same terms become marketing words — used inconsistently and deceptively.
Direct-to-consumer pet food made and sold within a province can ship to homes with no food-safety inspection. "HACCP" can mean a human food plant — or an unfinished garage.
Producers who invest heavily in human-grade facilities compete against rivals making the same claims for free. Without verification, consumers can't tell them apart.
Buying decisions used to come down to price and convenience. As pets became family, two new criteria entered the picture — health and humanization — and the fresh category was born.
Highly processed, low cost, easy to scoop and store.
More moisture and palatability, still heavily processed.
Higher quality inputs, lighter processing, premium price.
Gently-cooked & raw. Highest quality and digestibility — cold chain required.
Not every brand needs to reach the top tier — and that's fine. Our job is to make the difference visible, so the brands genuinely investing in quality and safety can be recognized for it.
A brand or manufacturer that has met our criteria for quality, food-safety practice, and truthful, transparent marketing.
Tier Two · Highest
Full adherence to every AAFCO Human Grade standard, mapped to the Canadian equivalents of U.S. federal human-food law. A very high bar most companies can't meet.
Understand what "fresh," "human grade," and "complete & balanced" really mean — and how to verify the products you're feeding your family pet.
Learn what you're buying →Earn FPFA Approved or Certified Human Grade status and prove the investments you've made in quality, safety, and honest labeling.
Apply for certification →Get listed as a verified manufacturing partner so the brands you produce for can make truthful human-grade claims with confidence.
Become a verified partner →The Fresh Pet Food Alliance was co-founded by Kristin Matthews and Peter AP Zakarow — the team behind Canadian gently-cooked innovator Tom&Sawyer — and is growing into a North American coalition of like-minded brands and manufacturers raising the bar on quality, safety, and transparency. More than 20 brands joined our inaugural industry meeting at Connect, the Canadian pet industry trade show.
We serve as a hub of expertise, regulatory clarity, and education: developing a tiered classification system, extending AAFCO Human Grade compliance into Canada, and giving consumers a common language to make informed decisions for the pets they treat like family.
News on certification, new verified brands, and the push to raise pet-food standards across North America.