Bespoke pet supplement manufacturing
British VitaTech is a bespoke pet supplement manufacturer: we develop and make custom supplements for dogs and cats in the UK, from formulation to finished product, for brands worldwide, and the brand owns the formula.
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Dog and cat supplements with the testing behind our human ranges
In our UK facility, custom dog and cat supplements for premium brands are developed and made from the first formula to the finished product. Brands comparing pet supplement manufacturers get the science, testing and documentation we run for human supplements behind every chew, topper and lickable. We make joint, calming, gut, senior and skin and coat formulas as soft chews, toppers and powders, lickables and pastes, chewable tablets, sprinkle capsules and oils in pump bottles. Each formula is built for its species, every claim has its evidence on file before launch, every batch is tested by accredited partner laboratories, and the brand owns the formula.
As of October 2026, a pet supplement in the UK and the EU is feed, and a blended formula is complementary feed: feed that makes up a daily ration only together with other feed. Feed law, not food supplement law, sets its label, its claims and its hygiene standard.
In 2026, 62% of UK households own a pet, and the UK's 36.5 million pets include about 15.5 million dogs and 13 million cats (UK Pet Food, Kantar survey, January 2026).
Six products brands ask pet supplement manufacturers for
Brands are building six product types for dogs and cats.
- Joint and mobility chews led by omega-3 fatty acids, for active and older dogs.
- Calming chews and toppers built on amino acids, B vitamins, magnesium and botanicals.
- Gut formulas that pair authorised live cultures with prebiotic fibres.
- Senior formulas that bundle joint, digestive and antioxidant nutrition into one daily serving.
- Cat toppers and lickables, designed for a species with its own nutrition and its own sense of taste.
- Skin and coat oils rich in omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, dosed with a pump.
Private label pet supplements often start as a stock chew with a new label. A bespoke formula gives your brand a specification it controls: actives, levels per serving, species, format, flavour system and the evidence behind each claim. Your formula is yours. Research and development is a paid stage that can be included with an order of the right size. Pet supplements sit beside our human ranges in our supplement categories. Those human ranges include sports nutrition, weight management and nootropic formulas, made as capsules, powders and gummies.
Authorised feed additives for joint, calming, gut and senior formulas
Every ingredient in a pet formula is a feed material or a feed additive authorised for the target species, used within its authorisation. We check each one against the GB and EU feed additive registers and feed materials catalogue before development starts. A complementary feed may not carry an additive at more than 100 times the maximum set for it in complete feed, so we set levels and daily directions together.
Joints and mobility
Joint formulas for active and older dogs lead with EPA and DHA, the long-chain omega-3 fatty acids, from marine or algal oils. Trace elements such as manganese complete the formula, and vitamin E protects the oil. We specify EPA and DHA per serving, not total oil, and buy each oil against a certificate of analysis with its oxidation values. Fish oil, green-lipped mussel, collagen and animal-derived flavours are animal by-products in pet food, so we put Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) approval in place for those programmes before production. Algal oil gives a non-animal route to DHA.
Calming
Calming formulas combine L-tryptophan, an essential amino acid authorised in GB and the EU as a nutritional feed additive for all animal species, with B vitamins, magnesium and selected botanicals, as soft chews or toppers. Calming products must not make medicinal claims, so labels describe calm, settled behaviour in healthy animals and product names follow the same rule. CBD for animals is a veterinary medicine in the UK: the Veterinary Medicines Directorate (VMD) requires a marketing authorisation for it.
Gut health
Live cultures in pet products are zootechnical feed additives, authorised strain by strain and species by species, so a strain authorised for dogs is not automatically authorised for cats. We use only strains authorised for the target species in each market, dosed to hold their count to the end of shelf life, with prebiotic fibres such as chicory inulin and psyllium husk. Heat kills most cultures, so they go into cold-formed chews, powders and capsules rather than heat-treated pastes, and we count them at release and through the stability study.
Senior pets
Senior formulas put focused nutrition into easier formats. They bundle omega-3 fatty acids, antioxidant vitamins C and E and joint nutrients into one daily serving, as softer chews, lickables or toppers for animals that chew less easily or eat less. Labels speak of supporting normal function in older animals, which feed law allows and evidence can carry. Directions give the daily amount by body weight band, so one product serves a small terrier and a large retriever.
Cats
A cat formula is not a smaller dog formula. Cats need preformed taurine, arachidonic acid, niacin and vitamin A in their diet: they cannot break down plant carotenoids, and unlike dogs they cannot make niacin from tryptophan, according to the Global Alliance of Pet Food Associations. So beta-carotene can't stand in for vitamin A in a cat formula. Cats also lack a working sweet-taste receptor (Li and colleagues, PLoS Genetics, 2005), so sweeteners do nothing for palatability. We mask bitter actives with savoury flavours and fats, keep the serving small, and favour lickables, toppers and sprinkle capsules; see our flavour and taste masking work. In the US, propylene glycol is prohibited in cat food, so our cat chews use glycerine as the humectant.
Soft chews, toppers and lickables designed to be eaten willingly
Pets choose with their nose, so a format has to be eaten willingly, at the full dose, every time. We make every pet format in our UK facility, which is ISO 9001, HACCP and GMP certified by BSI. The pet lines run under feed hygiene law.
Soft chews
A soft chew turns the dose into a reward: one chew, one measured dose. We blend the actives into a dough of fibres, flours, oils, glycerine and flavour, form it cold so vitamins and cultures survive, and rest the chews until they reach a water activity target that holds yeasts and moulds back. Piece weight is the dose control, so we check it through every run, and every soft chew batch gets an active assay. Chews go into resealable barrier pouches or tubs, with a desiccant or oxygen absorber where the formula needs one.
Toppers and powders
Toppers are powders or granules sprinkled over the meal. They carry gram-level doses such as fibres and suit animals that refuse a chew. Powder work is about flow and uniformity: we match particle sizes so the actives don't separate in the tub, and pack single servings in sachets or stick packs, or multi-serve tubs with a scoop. See powder supplement manufacturing and sachet and stick pack manufacturing.
Lickables and pastes
Lickables are smooth pastes and purées in single-serve tubes or stick packs, licked from the pack or squeezed over food, and they suit cats and older animals. We preserve each one by design: low water activity and controlled pH for a shelf-stable paste, or heat treatment in the sealed pack for a moist purée. We control viscosity and fill weight at filling, so every serving carries the same dose.
Chewable tablets, sprinkle capsules and oils
Flavoured chewable tablets, and capsules that open over food, come from our capsule and tablet manufacturing. Pet capsules use plant-based HPMC shells, which keep gelatine, an animal by-product in pet food, out of the product. Omega-3 and skin and coat oils go into pump bottles that dose a set volume per press, nitrogen-flushed and protected with tocopherols, with peroxide and anisidine values tested at release; see liquid supplement manufacturing.
How we make and test pet supplements
- Registration and HACCP. Feed registration with the local Trading Standards service, our feed authority, comes before any pet product is made or sampled. The pet lines carry their own feed HACCP study, built on FEDIAF's Guide to Good Practice for the Manufacture of Safe Pet Foods, which the EU has endorsed.
- Segregation. Pet batches run as campaigns with a documented clean-down before and after, using food-grade raw materials only, with separate labelled storage and their own product codes and batch series. Ingredients that are hazardous to pets, such as xylitol, caffeine and theobromine, are controlled like allergens and kept out of pet production.
- Suppliers and additives. Every supplier is approved before any material is used, and vitamins and trace elements arrive as premixes from approved feed additive suppliers.
- Label control. Label verification on every batch is the critical control point in our HACCP plan, CCP-01, covering species, directions, additives and analytical constituents. Labels follow the FEDIAF labelling code that UK Pet Food hosts.
- Testing and release. Every batch is tested by accredited partner laboratories (ISO/IEC 17025) as part of every order: actives, microbiology including Salmonella and Enterobacteriaceae, heavy metals, water activity for chews, culture counts for gut formulas, and the protein, fat, fibre, ash and moisture analysis behind the label. Quality control releases every batch against its specification, nothing is dispatched without quality control sign-off, and we keep three retained samples per batch for shelf life plus one year. See testing and batch release.
- Stability and palatability. Every new pet formula goes through a stability study, and we arrange palatability testing with specialist pet panels. A one-bowl test measures acceptance; a two-bowl test measures preference between two versions (Aldrich and Koppel, Animals, 2015).
Feed claims need evidence on file, with no register to lean on
Unlike food supplements, pet products have no register of authorised health claims. As of October 2026, a feed claim in the UK and the EU must be objective and verifiable, backed by published evidence or documented company research before the product goes on sale. Claims that optimise nutrition or support physiological conditions are allowed; claims to prevent, treat or cure are not. The VMD's guidance on advertising non-medicinal products says they "may only be presented for maintaining health in healthy animals". Testimonials, your own site's reviews and product names count as your claims, and "may help" wording gives no cover.
| Market | Claims you can use | What to avoid |
|---|---|---|
| United Kingdom | Nutrition and support of normal physiology in healthy animals, such as joint support for active dogs, with the evidence on file. The label says "complementary feed" or "complementary pet food", with the species and directions. | Medicinal claims, and names, testimonials or reviews that imply them; claims of a particular nutritional purpose (dietetic feed) outside the uses the law lists. |
| European Union | The same feed claim rules. The business named on the label must be established and registered in the EU, the EEA or Northern Ireland, so EU sales run through your EU entity or importer, and we prepare the labels and documents for them. | Additives not authorised for the species, or used above their authorised levels. |
| United States | Claims tied to nutrition, taste and aroma, within animal food rules. | Drug claims, including any claim to affect the body beyond nutrition; dietary supplement terminology and labelling. |
In the US, FDA classes each animal product as animal food or an animal drug by its intended use, and states either register product labels or license the firm. For US programmes, we extend our FDA food facility registration to animal food before the first order, run an animal food safety plan to FDA's preventive controls rule, and agree with you who holds each state registration. For brands in the National Animal Supplement Council's Quality Seal programme, we supply the records and test results its audits call for.
US animal food rules, GB and EU realignment, additive renewals
As of October 2026, three points shape pet product planning; we follow each on our regulation watch page.
- US status. Rules for supplement-style animal products are under review. Until they change, we keep US labels inside animal food rules.
- GB and EU alignment. GB and EU feed rules are expected to realign, so we design every formula to both feed additive registers.
- Feed additive renewals. Authorisations are renewed, amended or withdrawn strain by strain and species by species, so we check the GB and EU registers before every order.
Start your project with your species, formats and markets, and we build the formula, the claims file and the documents together.
References: Regulation (EC) No 767/2009 on the placing on the market and use of feed (2009); Regulation (EC) No 183/2005 on feed hygiene (2005); Veterinary Medicines Directorate, Advertising non-medicinal veterinary products (2026); Animal and Plant Health Agency, Using animal by-products to make pet food (2026); UK Pet Food, UK pet population data (2026); Li and colleagues, PLoS Genetics (2005); Aldrich and Koppel, Animals (2015); US Code of Federal Regulations, propylene glycol in or on cat food (2026).
Where this is going
To 2030
Up: pet humanisation and senior-pet care keep supplements growing
To 2036
Up: the category formalises if US legislation passes
What to watch
Unclear US regulatory status, FDA warning letters and unreliable market data
Questions brands ask
Are pet supplements regulated as food supplements?
No. As of October 2026, a pet supplement in the UK and the EU is feed, and a blended formula is complementary feed: feed that makes up a daily ration only together with other feed. Feed law therefore sets its label, its claims and its hygiene standard, and the maker registers as a feed business with its local authority. In the US, animal products have no supplement category, and FDA classes each one as animal food or an animal drug by its intended use.
What claims can a pet supplement make?
Claims about nutrition and supporting normal physiology in healthy animals, with the evidence on file before launch. As of October 2026, UK and EU feed law rules out claims to prevent, treat or cure, and the VMD's guidance says non-medicinal products may only be presented for maintaining health in healthy animals. Testimonials, reviews on your own site and product names count as your claims, and "may help" wording or disclaimers give no cover.
Which formats suit dogs and cats?
Soft chews suit dogs, because one chew is one measured dose that a dog takes as a reward. Cats lack a working sweet-taste receptor, so lickables, toppers and sprinkle capsules with savoury flavours suit them better. Powders and stick packs carry gram-level doses such as fibres, and pump bottles dose omega-3 oils. We make every format in-house and confirm acceptance with one-bowl and two-bowl palatability tests run by specialist pet panels.
Can you make pet supplements for US brands?
Yes. As of October 2026, the US has no supplement category for animals: FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine classes each product as animal food or an animal drug by its intended use, and states either register labels or license the firm. For US programmes, we extend our FDA food facility registration to animal food before the first order, run an animal food safety plan, keep claims within animal food rules and supply the records a National Animal Supplement Council audit asks for.
Can you use fish oil, green-lipped mussel or collagen in pet formulas?
Yes, with the approval those ingredients need. As of October 2026, fish oil, green-lipped mussel, milk, egg, gelatine and collagen count as animal by-products when used in UK pet food, so the site needs Animal and Plant Health Agency approval as well as feed registration before production. We put that approval in place for your programme. For a non-animal formula, algal oil supplies DHA in place of fish oil.
How do you test pet supplements?
Every batch is tested by accredited partner laboratories (ISO/IEC 17025) as part of every order. Tests cover the actives, microbiology including Salmonella and Enterobacteriaceae, heavy metals, water activity for chews, culture counts for gut formulas, and the protein, fat, fibre, ash and moisture analysis behind the label. Quality control releases each batch against its specification, nothing is dispatched without quality control sign-off, and we keep three retained samples per batch for shelf life plus one year.
Who owns a pet formula you develop?
You do. Your formula is yours: we develop it to your brief, species and markets, and the formula, its specification and the data behind it belong to your brand. Research and development is a paid stage that can be included with an order of the right size. We make pet formats in our UK facility, which is ISO 9001, HACCP and GMP certified by BSI; pet lines run under feed law, and feed registration comes before any pet product is made or sampled.