What "Poultry By-Product Meal" Means in Cat Food
By Pettings · Published Oct 29, 2026 · Scores and prices as of Nov 9, 2026
Poultry by-product meal is a rendered, dried mix of bird parts other than the meat itself, such as necks, feet, undeveloped eggs and intestines, from birds the label does not name. It appears in 18 of the 149 dry foods on Pettings, and in the first five ingredients of 16. We rate it 2 out of 5, against 5 for chicken meal.
What the Words on the Label Mean
Each part of the name has a definition from AAFCO, the organization that writes the model rules for US pet food labels. Its ingredient list page explains them:
- Poultry is flesh and skin, with or without bone, from the parts or whole carcasses of poultry, without feathers, heads, feet and entrails. The definition does not list species. If the bird is one species, the maker may use its common name, such as chicken or turkey, but does not have to.
- Poultry by-products are clean parts other than the meat, such as heads, feet and viscera (internal organs), not rendered.
- Poultry by-product meal is the same kind of parts after rendering: cooked down so the water and most of the fat are removed, then ground into a dry powder. AAFCO's examples are necks, feet, undeveloped eggs and intestines.
So the term tells you two things: the parts are not limited to meat, and the birds are not named. It does not tell you which parts or which birds went into a given batch, and the label would read the same if that changed. A maker that uses one species can name it: 42 foods on our list say chicken by-product meal instead.
Other Ingredients That Do Not Name the Animal
Poultry is not the only group term.
- Meat on a label can only come from cattle, pigs, sheep or goats; any other mammal has to be named. Meat by-products are parts other than muscle, such as lungs, spleen, kidneys, liver, blood and bone, and never hair, horns, teeth or hooves (AAFCO, same page). None of our foods lists plain meat or meat meal.
- Meat and bone meal is rendered from mammal tissue, bone included, and does not name the animal. It appears in 9 of our foods.
- Fish meal and ocean fish meal do not name the fish. State feed rules based on the AAFCO model allow this; Washington's is one example. They appear in 38 of our foods.
- Animal fat does not name the animal at all. It appears in 18 of our foods.
None of these terms is a sign that a label breaks the rules. They are allowed names. They are simply less specific than "chicken meal" or "salmon meal".
How We Score Them
Our Ingredient score rates every ingredient from 0 to 5 and weighs the first five ingredients at 70%. For animal ingredients, the main question is whether the label names the animal and the part.
| Ingredient | What the label names | Our rating (0 to 5) |
|---|---|---|
| Chicken meal | The animal and the meat | 5 |
| Fish meal | Fish, but not which fish | 4 |
| Poultry by-product meal | Birds, but not which birds or parts | 2 |
| Animal fat | Not the animal | 2 |
| Meat and bone meal | Not the animal; bone included | 1 |
A low rating here reflects what the label leaves out, not a test of the ingredient itself. The foods with poultry by-product meal near the top of the list also tend to have corn protein meal, rice or corn in their first five, which is the bigger reason their scores are low.
The Foods on Our List
These are the 16 foods with poultry by-product meal in their first five ingredients. All of them are made by Purina, except Special Kitty Gourmet Formula Seafood Blend and 9Lives Plus Urinary Tract Health.
Front-of-bag names do not always match the order. Purina Kitten Chow Year One Essentials says "with real chicken" on the bag, and its first ingredient is poultry by-product meal; chicken comes 7th in the list.
When Not Knowing the Animal Matters
For most cats eating a complete and balanced food, a group term is a labeling detail. It matters more when you need to know exactly which proteins your cat eats, for example during a food trial your veterinarian has set up for a suspected food allergy. A label that says poultry or fish cannot tell you whether a specific animal is in the food. In that situation, ask your veterinarian which foods to use; a trial needs more control than a label can give.
What to Check on the Bag
- The first five ingredients: is each animal named (chicken, salmon) or a group (poultry, fish, animal)?
- The word "by-product": parts other than meat are included.
- The word "meal": the ingredient is rendered and dried.
Related: How to Read a Cat Food Label and the poultry by-product meal page in our ingredient dictionary.
Sources
- AAFCO, "What's in the Ingredients List?": definitions of meat, meat by-products, poultry, poultry by-products and poultry by-product meal.
- Washington State, WAC 16-252-064, feed ingredient naming ("fish").
- Pettings, How We Score: ingredient ratings and the first five rule.
- Food figures from the Pettings food pages, copied from the makers' labels.
Scores describe what the label says. They are not medical advice.
