What kind of ingredient this is
chicken by-product meal sits in the animal protein family. Named animal proteins are the foundation of the Protein Quality Index. The named-species multiplier rewards single-species clarity (chicken meal beats poultry meal, by-product clarity is graded separately).
Where chicken by-product meal sits in the Sniff System
The methodology treats chicken by-product meal as neither positive nor negative on its own. Whether it lifts or hurts a product's score depends on context: position in the ingredient list, ratio to higher-quality ingredients, and the rest of the formulation.
Every methodology choice is published, citeable, and subject to revision when new evidence arrives. Read the full Sniff methodology for the formulas behind every score component, or file a correction if you think this position is wrong.
Similar ingredients in the catalog
Sniff's semantic graph clusters these ingredients near chicken by-product meal by formulation profile. Each links to its own ingredient page.