“No animal by-products” means a product contains no parts or substances derived from animals, including less obvious ingredients like organs, bones, fats, skin, and secretions. You’ll see this claim on food, pet food, cosmetics, and household products. While it sounds straightforward, the term “animal by-product” covers a surprisingly wide range of ingredients, many of which go by technical names you might not recognize on a label.
What Counts as an Animal By-Product
An animal by-product is any material that comes from an animal but isn’t the primary product (like a steak or a chicken breast). Think of it as everything else: organs, bones, skin, fat, blood, feathers, hooves, and glandular secretions. In the pet food industry, AAFCO defines meat by-products as “the non-rendered, clean parts, other than meat, derived from slaughtered mammals,” which includes lungs, spleen, kidneys, brain, liver, blood, bone, stomachs, and intestines. For poultry, by-products include heads, feet, and internal organs like the heart, gizzard, and liver.
Beyond the obvious animal parts, by-products also include substances produced by living animals. Milk, eggs, honey, beeswax, lanolin (the grease from sheep’s wool), and silk all fall under this umbrella. So when a product says “no animal by-products,” it should exclude all of these, not just meat-related ingredients.
Where You’ll See This Label
The claim appears across very different product categories, and what it means in practice shifts depending on context.
In food, “no animal by-products” typically signals that a product is free from gelatin (made by boiling animal skin, tendons, and bones), lard, tallow, casein (a milk protein), and similar ingredients. Vegan-labeled foods go a step further and also exclude eggs, dairy, and honey.
In pet food, it means the formula doesn’t contain organ meats, bone meal, or rendered animal fats. Some pet owners seek this out because they want a plant-based diet for their pets, while others are simply trying to avoid lower-quality protein sources.
In cosmetics and skincare, the claim means the product skips ingredients like lanolin, animal-derived collagen, tallow, carmine (a red dye made from crushed insects), and keratin sourced from hooves or feathers. Many “cruelty-free” products still contain animal by-products, so the two labels don’t mean the same thing.
Ingredients That Hide Animal Origins
One of the biggest challenges with avoiding animal by-products is that many show up under chemical or trade names that don’t sound animal-related at all. Here are some of the most common ones to watch for:
- Gelatin: Found in gummy candy, marshmallows, Jell-O, and even some brands of roasted peanuts, where it helps salt and seasoning stick to the surface. It comes from boiled animal skin, bones, and ligaments.
- Casein or caseinate: A milk protein added to “nondairy” creamers, protein powders, and some products labeled “dairy-free.”
- Lanolin: Sheep wool grease used in lip balm, lotion, makeup, and surprisingly, some brands of orange juice.
- Carmine (also called Natural Red #4 or carminic acid): A red pigment made from crushed cochineal insects, used in makeup, candy, and applesauce.
- Confectioner’s glaze (shellac): A coating derived from lac insects, used to give candy and pills a shiny finish and protect them from moisture.
- L-cysteine: An amino acid used as a dough conditioner in commercial bread. It’s often derived from duck feathers or cow horns.
- Isinglass: Derived from dried fish bladders, it’s used as a clarifying agent in many beers and wines.
- Castoreum: A secretion from beaver glands, occasionally used in perfumes and as a flavoring agent.
A product labeled “no animal by-products” should be free from all of these. But because no single regulatory body enforces this claim uniformly across all product categories, the reliability depends on the manufacturer and whether the product carries a third-party certification.
How It Differs From Vegan and Cruelty-Free
“No animal by-products,” “vegan,” and “cruelty-free” overlap but aren’t interchangeable. A product with no animal by-products could still have been tested on animals, which would disqualify it from being cruelty-free. And a cruelty-free product (one not tested on animals) can still contain lanolin, beeswax, or milk derivatives.
Vegan is the broadest restriction of the three. A vegan product contains no animal-derived ingredients of any kind and, depending on the certifying body, may also need to be free from animal testing. If your goal is to avoid all animal-derived materials, look for a certified vegan label from organizations like The Vegan Society or Vegan Action, which verify ingredient lists against a comprehensive database of animal-derived substances.
Reading Labels Effectively
Ingredient lists are your most reliable tool, but they require some literacy. In the U.S., food labels must list all ingredients, though they can use technical names. Cosmetics follow similar disclosure rules under FDA guidelines, but terms like “stearic acid” won’t tell you whether the source is animal or plant without further research. Some stearic acid comes from tallow, some from coconut oil.
The most reliable shortcut is third-party certification. Certified vegan logos, the Leaping Bunny mark for cruelty-free products, and similar seals indicate that someone beyond the manufacturer has verified the claim. Without certification, “no animal by-products” on a label is essentially a marketing statement, and its accuracy depends entirely on the company’s own standards and honesty.
When in doubt, contact the manufacturer directly. Companies that genuinely formulate without animal by-products are usually happy to confirm their sourcing, especially for ambiguous ingredients like glycerin, stearic acid, or “natural flavors,” all of which can come from either animal or plant sources depending on the supplier.