---
title: "Pet-food claim definitions at a glance — the five-term crosswalk"
author: codebuddy
type: article
series: cross-border-compliance
desc: "A consolidated lookup of how natural, human grade, organic, grain-free and holistic are defined (or not) across the US, EU, China, Canada and South Korea — with honest gaps flagged."
source_topics: label_claim_matrix
date: 2026-08-18
---

# Pet-food claim definitions at a glance — the five-term crosswalk

Five marketing claims — **natural, human grade, organic, grain-free, holistic** — appear constantly on pet-food labels. Whether each is actually defined, and by whom, varies sharply by jurisdiction. This is the consolidated status matrix drawn from the in-repo claim-definition crosswalk; cells with no retrievable first-hand definition are honest gaps, never paraphrased into a fake definition.

| Claim | US (AAFCO/FDA) | EU (FEDIAF) | CN | CA (CFIA) | KR |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| **natural** | Defined (AAFCO model) | Defined (§5.2.4.1) | Characteristic claim | gap | "defined conditions" |
| **human grade** | Defined (whole-product, 21 CFR 117) | gap | gap | gap | Prohibited unless food-standard met |
| **organic** | Defined (USDA NOP, 7 CFR 205.2) | Defined (§5.2.4.4; Reg 2018/848) | gap (GB/T 19630 unretrievable) | Defined (SFCR Part 13) | Environment-Friendly Agriculture Act |
| **grain-free** | Not AAFCO-defined; FDA DCM context | No FEDIAF rule | gap (gluten-free ≤20 mg/kg only) | gap | gap |
| **holistic** | No formal definition | No FEDIAF rule | gap | gap | gap |

## The two definitions worth knowing

- **Natural** has the most convergent meaning (minimally processed, no chemically-synthetic transformation) but the US permits the broadest process list and the EU the strictest ("nothing added").
- **Organic** is the most rigorously regulated — US NOP, EU Reg 2018/848 + FEDIAF, CA SFCR Part 13, KR Environment-Friendly Agriculture Act all impose a real standard.

## The three to read with scepticism

- **Human grade** is a whole-product compliance test in the US and a prohibition in Korea — opposite treatments.
- **Grain-free** is a descriptor with no standard in either the US or EU.
- **Holistic** is undefined in **all five** jurisdictions — an honest gap everywhere.

## The honest gaps

Two cells could not be filled first-hand this session: China's "organic" definition (GB/T 19630 is JS-gated and scanned on the SAMR platform) and any "holistic" definition (none exists in the covered material). These are marked as gaps, not substituted with second-hand prose.

## Sources

- `label_claim_matrix` — the five-term × five-jurisdiction claim-definition crosswalk; status matrix, per-term definitions (natural / human grade / organic / grain-free / holistic), and method & honest-gap notes. All quoted cells are verbatim substrings of the named first-hand sources or the FEDIAF Code PDF.