Animal feeding stuffs

Animal feeding stuffs are supposed to be zero-rated as well – given that “food for human consumption” is item 1, and “food for animals” is item 2, you might think they would just say “food”. But that’s not the way the legal mind works…
There’s an important exception to the zero-rating of animal feeding stuffs: “pet foods, canned, packaged or prepared; packaged foods (not being pet foods) for birds other than poultry or game; and biscuits and meal for cats and dogs”. So things you feed to animals that are not pets should be zero-rated, as long as they aren’t bird food or dog biscuits.
A company called Fluff Ltd (why?) operated a very special type of vending machine – they sold maggots to fishermen. The company realised that anglers are often short of bait outside normal shop hours, so they came up with the idea of putting machines on garage forecourts. Be warned: if it says “Bag It with Mag-It” on it, you won’t get a cup of coffee or a chocolate bar. But for £2 you can buy a pint of maggots (1 pint maggots = 2,958 little wrigglers).
You might think that it would take an angler a long time to put 2,958 maggots onto hooks, and apparently so do the anglers. So it’s common practice to just lob the disgusting mess into the water. The fish spot the free food and gather round, and then it’s easy to catch them. They probably fall asleep after a couple of pints and you don’t even need a rod and line.
So the company argued that the maggots were animal feeding stuffs. The Tribunal had to look into all the habits of fishermen, starting with what it says in “The Compleat Angler” by Izaak Walton, and going on to the wisdom of three times world champion carp angler Bob Nudd in his video “Carp on the Long Pole” which was viewed by the hearing. The possible effect of different coloured maggots was discussed, and the fact that some anglers only use the maggots for general feeding, baiting their lines with bread, cheese or sweetcorn. It’s probably less fiddly, and a lot less disgusting, putting a bit of cheese on a hook than a maggot. Apparently Izaak Walton added a sweet paste made of honey or sugar to his maggots, but Bob Nudd favoured chips and curry. I suppose it all depends what you have to hand.
The Tribunal decided that there was a difference between something that is fed to fish, and fish food. You have to consider why it’s being fed. Something that is just bait is not food, even if it has the effect of helping the fish to grow big and strong. Even if the fishermen prepared their favourite spot by tipping pints of maggots into the water over an extended period, making the fish think it was a good place to be on a Saturday afternoon, the aim was still to catch fish and not to nourish them. The maggots were VATable.
The company was unhappy with this and appealed to the High Court. Laddie J came up with an interesting argument: “I put it to Mr Storey that if his approach is right a straw boater, which of course is edible, would itself be animal feeding stuffs and therefore the supply of boaters would be zero rated under this legislation. He accepts that that is the inevitable conclusion of his submission.” I presume the judge has suffered from a donkey eating his boater, which is a terrible embarrassment at Henley. He dismissed the appeal. I’ll look at the rules on hats later.
The company also tried to argue that they were being hard done by because another case had decided that lobster bait was zero-rated. North Isles Shellfish Ltd supplied bits of fish to lobstermen to lure their prey into creels, and they were allowed not to charge VAT on the fish-bits. There were several important differences. The lobsters were caught alive, and the same fish was used to fatten them up after they had been captured. But the bait in this case was also “fit for human consumption” – it was zero-rated under the main heading of human food, as well as under the second heading of animal feeding stuffs. The Tribunal chairman said that there was no similar argument with the maggots.