Today’s Update on the Pet Food Recall—4/21/2007

I sincerely wish I didn’t have to keep producing updates on this story. But new foods continue to be recalled and I will continue to report it. In this case Royal Canin, heretofore uninvolved in the pet food recall, has recalled several of its dry pet foods. From the company’s statement:

It is with sincere regret that I inform you of a new and unfortunate development with some of our pet food products.

Although we have no confirmed cases of illness in pets, we have decided to voluntarily remove the following dry pet food products that contain rice protein concentrate due to the presence of a melamine derivative.

ROYAL CANIN SENSIBLE CHOICE® (available in pet specialty stores nationwide)

– Chicken Meal & Rice Formula Senior DRY DOG FOOD
– Lamb Meal & Rice Formula Puppy DRY DOG FOOD
– Lamb Meal & Rice Formula Adult DRY DOG FOOD
– Lamb Meal & Rice Formula Senior DRY DOG FOOD
– Rice & Catfish Meal Formula Adult DRY DOG FOOD

ROYAL CANIN VETERINARY DIETâ„¢ (available only in veterinary clinics)

– Canine Early Cardiac EC 22â„¢
– Canine Skin Support SS21â„¢
– Feline Hypoallergenic HP23â„¢

ALL PRODUCTS WITH AN EXPIRATION DATE OF APRIL 19TH, 2008 ARE MADE WITHOUT CHINESE SOURCED VEGETABLE PROTEINS AND ARE SAFE.

The company goes to some lengths to note its products that aren’t involved in the recall. And there’s one development in this statement that I find very interesting:

In addition, Royal Canin USA will no longer use any Chinese suppliers for any of our vegetable proteins.

While I think that’s a necessary development I wonder if it’s sufficient. I question the decision process that led to using Chinese suppliers in the first place. And how will they know, in the absence of either vigilance or trust what their actual source of supply is?

This specific brand and these specific varieties are the foods we’ve been feeding our dogs for the last ten years: Sensible Choice Lamb and Rice Adult and Sensible Choice Lamb and Rice Puppy. When we made the decision to feed these foods, we evaluated a wide range of products on the basis of contents, availability, price, and pallatability. When we made our choice lots of foods used rather noxious preservatives and we were eager to avoid those and also to avoid corn (we were concerned about possible allergies to corn).

Now we’re in the same boat as so many other people, wondering if—with the best of intentions—we’d been poisoning our dogs. And while Royal Canin may be eager to regain the trust of its customers it must be customers other than us. Today we’ll decide what we’ll be feeding our dogs from this day forward and it won’t be a product from any of the brands name vendors that have been involved in the recall.

We’re evaluating Solid Gold, Eagle Pack, Flint River Ranch, California Natural, Canidae, and Nature’s Variety. I’ll post on our process and conclusions later.

Blue Buffalo has recalled a production run of Spa Select Kitten Dry Food:

The Blue Buffalo Company has undertaken a voluntary recall on one production run of our Spa Select Kitten dry food. The production code on the recalled product is:

“Best Used By Mar. 07 08 B.”

We have taken this action because the rice protein concentrate used for this one production run was obtained from Wilbur-Ellis, the same company who supplied this ingredient to Natural Balance. Test results received late last evening (4/18) indicated that this rice protein concentrate tested positive for melamine. This is the first and only time our manufacturing partner sourced an ingredient from Wilbur-Ellis, and we had no knowledge that they had imported the ingredient from China.

Other resources on the pet food recall:

Menu Food Recall page
FDA Pet Food Recall page
AVMA Comprehensive List of Recalled Foods