Analytical constituents

Analytical constituents are the mandatory European list of declared nutrient levels on a pet-food label, typically covering [crude protein](/glossary/crude-protein), [crude fat](/glossary/crude-fat), [crude fibre](/glossary/crude-fibre), [crude ash](/glossary/crude-ash), and [moisture](/glossary/moisture). Required under Regulation (EC) 767/2009, it is the European counterpart to the US [guaranteed analysis](/glossary/guaranteed-analysis), giving owners a standardised, comparable snapshot of a food's basic composition (Regulation (EC) 767/2009). The two systems are close cousins with a few differences in convention, including which nutrients must appear and the UK or EU spelling of fibre rather than the US fiber. A practical detail that trips people up is that these figures are declared as-fed, so a wet food's high moisture makes its protein and fat look low until you convert everything onto a [dry matter basis](/glossary/as-fed-vs-dry-matter). The list is also intentionally limited: it does not include carbohydrate, which owners must approximate with the [NFE carbohydrate estimate](/glossary/carbohydrate-estimate-nfe), and it tells you quantity rather than quality, so a stated protein percentage reveals nothing about the digestibility or amino-acid value of that protein. For a premium buyer, the analytical constituents are the starting point of any objective comparison, best read together with the [ingredient order](/glossary/ingredient-order) and the food's stated energy value rather than in isolation. Treated that way, this short table is one of the most reliable, marketing-free parts of any European pack. For a full label-reading walkthrough, see the [Petipedia glossary](/glossary).

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General documentary information. For an individual animal, a veterinarian's advice takes precedence over any online content.