Feed additive categories and functional groups under Regulation (EC) No 1831/2003

A function, not a staple nutrient. In animal nutrition, a feed additive is added to feed or water to do one precise thing: improve the characteristics of the feed or of animal products, meet a nutritional need, act on animal production, performance or welfare, or reduce the effect of livestock farming on the environment (Article 5(3)).

Authorisation first. No one may place on the market, process or use a feed additive that has not been authorised (Article 3). The authorisation is granted by a Commission regulation, after an opinion from the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). It is valid for ten years throughout the Union, is renewable for ten-year periods, and the additive is then entered in the register (Articles 9 and 14).

Three basic conditions. The additive must not have an adverse effect on animal health, human health or the environment, must not be presented in a way that may mislead the user, and must not harm the consumer by impairing the distinctive features of animal products or mislead the consumer about them (Article 5(2)).

A defined scope. The Regulation leaves out processing aids and veterinary medicinal products, except coccidiostats and histomonostats used as feed additives (Article 1). Antibiotics other than these are not authorised as feed additives (Article 5(4)).

Sometimes a holder. For zootechnical additives and coccidiostats, the authorising regulation names a holder: only that holder, its legal successor or a person with its written agreement may first place the product on the market (Article 3(3)).

Products older than the Regulation. Additives already on the market under the earlier Directive stayed in the register as “existing products” until they are re-evaluated (Article 10). That is why the register still shows “E” numbers next to the current ones.

Neither Regulation defines a “feed supplement”. In this framework, a product sold under that name falls under one of the definitions in the table: a feed additive, a premixture or, often, a complementary feed. What decides is not the trade name but the composition, the function and the directions for use.

The difference matters in practice. An additive refers to an authorisation, with its species and its levels; a premixture is not fed as such and has its own labelling rules; a complementary feed is fed with other feed and is labelled as a compound feed.

A mixture of authorised additives needs no further authorisation, provided the conditions of use of each one are met (Article 3(4) of Regulation 1831/2003).

Article 17 of the Regulation requires the Commission to establish and keep up to date a “Community Register of Feed Additives”, available to the public: this is the list of authorised feed additives. It is consulted online, on the Commission’s Food and Feed Information Portal.

Each entry gives the identification number of the additive, its name, its category and functional group, the animal species or categories for which it is authorised, the act that authorises it with its Official Journal reference, the date of authorisation and the date of expiry. Where there is one, the holder of the authorisation is shown too.

The register separates authorised additives from those whose authorisation is being phased out, for instance because no application for renewal was submitted in time, and it flags the transitional measures in force.

The register points to the act: it is the authorising regulation, published in the Official Journal, that sets the species, the levels and the conditions of use. Before choosing an additive for a formula, that act is the text to read, in its version in force.

This register applies to the European Union. Elsewhere, each country keeps its own list, and an additive authorised here is not necessarily authorised there, or the reverse.

The products on this site are sorted by use: Feed safety and preservation, Digestion and performance, Flavours and sweeteners for Feed Solutions, and Drinking water for Farm Solutions. These are families of use, each answering a problem at the mill or on the farm, not the categories of the Regulation.

What a product is can be read on its page and confirmed on its technical data sheet. Its regulatory frame in a given country depends on the destination: ask for it with the other documents, telling us the product and the country.