The states
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What state feed law asks for
Registration of the product, a label reviewed against that state's requirements, a guaranteed analysis, a fee, and in most states periodic tonnage reporting on what you actually sold there.
Largely to one model, and not identically
Most states work from an AAFCO model, which means the requirements rhyme rather than match. A label acceptable in one state can need a change for the next, and the differences are in detail rather than in principle.
Which makes national distribution an administrative project
Not a legal obstacle. Every registration is tractable on its own; the difficulty is that there are many, they renew, and they each want reporting.
So start with the states you will actually sell in
A regional product registered in six states is a real business. Registering in fifty before the first sale is a way to spend a year and a lot of money on markets you have not tested.
Online selling does not avoid it
The obligation follows the sale into the state. Shipping a feed supplement to a customer in a state where it is not registered is the same problem as stocking it there.
Tonnage reporting needs a system from day one
Sales by state, by product, by period. Reconstructing a year of that from order records afterwards is miserable, and it is trivial if the field exists from the start.
And it is separate from the federal label
A product can satisfy 21 CFR 501 and still be unregistrable in a given state until its label is adjusted. Treat them as two reviews rather than one.
Reciprocity is not a thing here
Being registered in one state buys nothing in the next. Each is its own application, its own review and its own fee, which is why the count of states is the honest measure of the work.
Budget renewal, not just registration
Registrations lapse, usually annually. A product registered in twelve states has twelve renewal dates, and a lapsed registration is an unregistered product in that state until it is fixed.