01
Technical title
Nutritional Adequacy & Composition
Nutrition
Does the food deliver the nutrients a dog needs, both as designed and as measured in the food itself?
- Nutrients
- Nutrient ranges
- Calories
- Designed vs measured
The Matterdays Food Standard
One Standard.
Every food.
Every food in the Index is checked against the same set of requirements. For each one, we show what the evidence demonstrates, what was checked and fell short, and what nobody has shown us yet.
We don't fill the gaps with assumptions.
Same rules
Every food is checked the same way, whoever makes it.
Evidence, not marketing
We separate what a company says from what its documents, outside sources and finished-food testing can demonstrate.
What we don't know stays visible
Missing evidence stays missing. We don't guess.
Traceable
Every result can be traced back to the rule and evidence behind it.
Nutritional reference
Built on established nutritional references.
For nutritional requirements, the Matterdays Food Standard uses AAFCO nutrient profiles and other applicable primary references as a starting point. Matterdays then applies its own evidence and verification framework to separate what a food is formulated to meet, what has been measured in finished food, what supporting evidence exists, and what remains unverified.
AAFCO does not endorse, approve or certify the Matterdays Food Standard.
See the technical referencesWhat we look at
The Standard looks at a food from four different angles.
02
Technical title
Safety & Quality Systems
Safety & quality
Is the food made under controls designed to keep it safe and consistent, and does testing of the finished product support that?
- Quality controls
- Finished-food testing
- Label agreement
- Pathogen testing
03
Technical title
Nutritional Substantiation
Substantiation
Who is responsible for the recipe, and what evidence supports that the food does what its nutritional formulation is supposed to do?
- Feeding evidence
- Formula documentation
- Professional expertise
- Nutritional substantiation
04
Technical title
Supply Chain, Identity & Stability
Identity & supply chain
Can the ingredients and finished product be identified and traced, and is the food supported through its shelf life?
- Product identity
- Traceability
- Formula linkage
- Stability
- Consistency
Here's why the distinction matters.
A label can tell you something without telling you everything.
Crude protein
Educational exampleLabel
Minimum guarantee available
What we know
The company declares a minimum amount of protein.
What we still don't know
What an independent measurement of finished retail food would find.
Calcium
Educational exampleLabel
Minimum guarantee available
What we know
The company declares a minimum amount of calcium.
What we still don't know
Whether calcium stays within the full range the food needs to meet.
Useful evidence doesn't have to answer every question. Matterdays shows you exactly which question it answers.
Designed to meet.
Measured to meet.
They're different.
A recipe can be designed to meet a requirement on paper.
Whether the food in the bag actually does is a separate question that only finished-food testing can answer.
We keep the two apart, so you can always see which one you're looking at.
Designed
What the recipe, label and documents say the food should contain.
Measured
What testing finds in a finished retail sample.
Every check ends in one of three places.
Confirmed
The evidence shows this requirement is met.
Criteria Not Met
We checked, and it wasn't.
Not Yet Verified
No one has shown us enough to say either way.
Not Yet Verified is not a failure. It means the evidence doesn't exist yet, hasn't been shared, or isn't enough to answer the question.
Then we show the whole picture.
Example food · illustrative layout only
Confirmed
—
Criteria Not Met
—
Not Yet Verified
—
Standard Effects
—
Confirmed is not a percentage, a grade or a measure of how healthy a food is, and it does not prove that one food will produce better health outcomes than another.
How close is the evidence to the food itself?
01
From the company
Information on the label or documents supplied or published by the manufacturer.
02
Confirmed with an outside source
We checked the evidence with the laboratory, registry, certifier or other independent source behind it.
03
Checked by Matterdays
Matterdays independently authenticated or verified the evidence.
04
Tested by Matterdays
Matterdays bought a retail sample and had the finished food independently tested.
Technical details
The technical Standard records these as Company documented, Independently authenticated, Matterdays independently verified and Matterdays laboratory verified.
Most foods have evidence at several of these levels at once. We show the mix, not a single evidence grade.
When we don't know
We say so.
Missing document
Not Yet Verified
We don't assume what's inside a document we haven't seen.
Incomplete label information
Not Yet Verified
A label can answer one part of a question without answering all of it.
Sources disagree
Kept separate
We don't combine conflicting formula information into one imaginary version.
We don't fill holes in the rulebook either.
Sometimes the official text a rule depends on isn't complete. When that happens, we don't guess what it probably says. That check stays switched off until the source is complete.
The Standard has a version number, like software.
Every result records the version of the Standard used to produce it. If the Standard changes later, the old result can still be reproduced under the rules that existed at the time.
Current public version information will appear here when the backend is connected.
View change logSame rules, regardless of brand.
Commercial relationships do not change how a food is checked.
Independence and relationship policies will be published here before launch.
Policy pageWant the details?
Read the complete technical Standard.
The public page explains what we check. The technical Standard contains the exact rules, reference tables, calculations, evidence requirements and version history.