Herbal preparations (phytotherapy) and essential oils (aromatherapy) are increasingly being used as alternatives to other “allopathic” medicinal products for the treatment of animals. This is true even for food-producing animals. If the products used have a therapeutic purpose, they are considered veterinary medicinal products.This means it should be possible to guarantee there is no risk to consumers of foods derived from treated animals. However, it is complicated to implement the current regulations to assess this risk for herbal medicinal products. ANSES therefore issued an internal request to propose a specific assessment methodology for herbal veterinary medicinal products.