Who could have imagined a month ago how the pet food recall could implode like this?
This started in mid-March, when Menu Foods, a contract manufacturer of wet pet foods, announced it was recalling dozens of products containing wheat gluten, which was traced to a new source in China. A fortnight later, investigators identified a contaminant, melamine, a chemical used in plastics.
Once the source of the ingredient was known, investigators sought to locate every place the ingredient had ended up – and the pet food recall expanded as more products made with the contaminated wheat gluten were found. As we went to press with the May issue, it seemed possible that the contamination of wheat gluten was limited to a sole shipment, and the number of places where the ingredient was used was finite – if not yet fully identified.
Just days later, that idea was disproved, as a number of dry pet foods, biscuits, and treats were found to have been made with the Chinese wheat gluten. The recall expanded day by day.
Then, an even more frightening shift in the news occurred, as reports surfaced that both corn gluten and rice protein concentrate sourced from China had also been found to contain melamine.
The news was the number one topic of conversation at Petfood Forum, a trade association conference held in Chicago in mid-April. The experts seemed most shocked about the discovery of contaminated rice protein; this is considered a “quality” ingredient, expensive, and is not in wide use in mass market pet food like corn gluten or wheat gluten. Suddenly, even the makers of “super-premium” pet foods – who had no doubt been relieved previously that the problems seemed limited to a different segment of the market – were scrambling to trace and test their ingredient sources. The most frequent comment I heard at the conference was “it could happen to any one of us.”
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Each day has seen dozens more foods added to the recall list. The latest news, as this issue is going to press, is that hundreds of foods that don’t (according to their labels) contain any of the suspect ingredients are being recalled by Menu Foods (where they were manufactured) due to “cross contamination.”
Currently, there are thousands of recalled products – too many to list in our pages. Websites published by dog enthusiasts seem to offer the latest-breaking news of expanding recalls, including sites such as petfoodtracker.com, petconnection.com, and itchmo.com. If you don’t have internet access, contact the manufacturer of each of your dog’s foods and treats and ask if the products you have bought and fed to your pets have been recalled.
“An Open Secret” in China
On April 30, the New York Times broke the story wide open. Reporters for the paper visited chemical plants in northeast China that make melamine from coal – and sell it to companies that manufacture plant-based proteins.
The Times reporters learned that the Xuzhou Anying Biologic Technology Development Company, one of the companies that American regulators named as having shipped melamine-tainted wheat gluten to the United States, had posted ads on industry websites in China, looking for sources of melamine to use in their products.
The reporters also spoke to two animal feed producers who told them that the use of melamine in plant-protein products is common in China. Inclusion of the product in small amounts “fools” the tests used to determine the protein content in the ingredient, making it appear that the protein levels are greater than they actually are; the higher the protein, the higher its value, and the higher its profits.
What are they good for?
Many dog owners, reeling from the daily bad news, are still trying to figure out what plant-based proteins are doing in carnivore food –especially in high-priced, presumably top-quality foods.
Plant proteins are mainly used to boost the protein content of some pet foods, though they may also contribute other functions. As discussed in “Pet Food Disaster,” May 2007, wheat gluten is widely used to thicken and “bind” the processed “chunks” or “cuts” of ground and mixed meat and grain material (known as “meat analogue”) used in wet “cuts and gravy” food products.
Corn gluten is frequently used to complete the desired amino acid profile of the finished product in an economical way. Wheat gluten costs about two to three times as much as corn gluten.
Rice protein concentrate is considered a higher-quality plant protein than wheat gluten or corn gluten, as it contains more of the amino acids needed by dogs and cats and is more digestible. It’s generally more expensive than wheat gluten, and even costs more than some animal proteins.
In low-cost foods, plant proteins (especially the extremely inexpensive corn gluten) are frequently used as a less-expensive alternative to a higher inclusion of animal proteins.
In higher-end foods, plant proteins are sometimes included when a manufacturer is seeking to provide a sole source of animal protein in the product, but the species used cannot provide as much total protein as is desired in the formula. They may also be used when including more of the animal protein source would contribute too much of another nutrient, to potentially harmful levels.
This is often the case with lamb- or venison-based foods. Lamb and venison meal are lower-protein meals, with higher ash levels, and have a moderate risk of going rancid. Ash is present in these ingredients in proportion to the amount of bone included in the meal. Low-ash meals are available, but the price is very high. These meals are also very high in fat, which presents another problem for the formulator who is trying to increase the product’s protein without increasing the fat level too much.
This is why manufacturers will often supplement their lamb- or venison-based products with rice protein concentrate (which is higher in protein, lower in ash, and is a more stable product) to help achieve the desired protein levels while maintaining safe ash levels and decreasing the risk of rancidity.
Rice protein may also be used in foods that are formulated for animals who are allergic to or intolerant of animal proteins.
In our opinion, the inclusion of rice protein in a food is not a problem – unless the ingredient is contaminated with melamine! And the only way that the inclusion of melamine-contaminated rice protein in a food could be even worse news for a company is if “rice protein” wasn’t on the list of ingredients on a pet food label.
We’ve been telling people to read dog food labels since Whole Dog Journal’s inception. But what’s a consumer to do if the label doesn’t list what’s actually in the food?
Inaccurate labels
When Natural Balance announced that it was recalling four of its foods, saying that the products contained rice protein concentrate found to contain melamine, our immediate response was “What?” The labels of the named products did not list rice protein as an ingredient. The company said in its April 17 press release that the ingredient had only recently been added to some production runs of the four products. The ingredient lists of the four foods were quickly changed on the company’s website to reflect the inclusion of rice protein, but of course the bags and cans of food already in stores (and people’s homes) did not.
Most pet food companies fiddle with their ingredients from time to time, adding a bit of this or that, or removing ingredients that are difficult (or prohibitively expensive) to source or that pose processing challenges. But they are legally obligated to immediately update the package labels of the reformulated products to accurately reflect their contents.
There is a persistent myth that every pet food executive has heard (and many may have repeated), to the effect that federal labeling laws allow pet food makers a “grace period” of six months, in which they can change the ingredients of their foods without changing the label. This is not true.
Another shoe dropped when American Nutrition, the contract manufacturer that made Natural Balance’s wet foods and baked treats, announced a recall of 26 wet pet foods and two baked dog treats after learning that the rice protein it used in the foods was contaminated with melamine. Four foods not previously recalled by
Natural Balance were on American Nutrition’s recall list. Natural Balance issued a press release the same day, stating that American Nutrition had added rice protein to these four products without the consent or knowledge of Natural Balance. Canine Caviar, a company with two products on American Nutrition’s recall list, and Blue Buffalo (with nine products on the American Nutrition list), and others also have denied having any knowledge that rice protein was added to their foods.
American Nutrition has since published its own press release in response, saying (in part): “American Nutrition did not engage in any deliberate or intentionally wrongful conduct relative to the inclusion of rice protein in certain products it manufactures . . .
“American Nutrition is investigating the circumstances surrounding labeling, formulation, and related inter-company communications, but it is simply false to state that American Nutrition was engaged in any deliberately deceitful and/or unlawful conduct. Labeling responsibility is a cooperative effort between American Nutrition and its customers. American Nutrition believes, for their part, that they were compliant with all applicable label regulations. Additional information will be released as American Nutrition completes its own investigation and as they continue to cooperate fully with ongoing FDA and other governmental agency inquiries.”
I’ve toured American Nutrition’s cannery, and I’m aware that their computers and technicians generate “batch records” that note the amounts of each ingredient used as batches of food are mixed and cooked. Some pet food companies require copies of these records and actually review them. Usually, any deviations from the formula given to the co-packer must be approved by the pet food company whose name is on the label. In my opinion, it’s a bit disingenuous for a pet food company to claim they didn’t know what a co-packer was putting in their food.
But on the other hand, what are we to make of the “cross-contamination” claimed by Menu Foods?
We’re frustrated, given that we’ve spent 10 years telling our subscribers to read product labels – and make purchasing decisions based on the ingredients that are on the labels. Now, it seems to be developing that “what’s in the bag” (or can or pouch) is accurately described by the product labels only sometimes. The industry owes consumers some solutions; how can we ever trust that what’s in the package is what the label says it is?
This incident opens another can of worms – or we should say, reopens. Lawsuits were only recently settled following a 2003 dog-killing recall involving food made by a contract manufacturer that evidently didn’t contain what its labels said it contained. The co-packer pointed a finger at the formula provided by the pet food company, the company blamed the co-packer, and, thanks to the sealed nature of legal settlements, we’ll never know who or what was truly at fault.
Bring on the revolution!
Problems frequently present an opportunity for growth or change, and the crisis in the pet food industry is no different.
Eager to win back the trust of concerned buyers, pet food companies are putting far more rigorous quality-control practices into immediate use. Some are “embedding” company staffers at contract manufacturing facilities. Some are seeking their own manufacturing facilities. I’ve heard from a number of pet food companies who are pledging to begin using U.S.-sourced ingredients only. Everyone has stepped up their procedures for sourcing and testing their ingredients.
While we’re glad to hear about these planned improvements, we have to be a bit skeptical. How will the companies involved prove to us that these things have been accomplished?
I’m thrilled to hear that thousands of people (including Oprah Winfrey!) have started feeding their dogs home-prepared diets. I hope that Whole Dog Journal will help inform the people who stick to the practice over the long haul, to prevent health problems related to nutritional deficiencies, excesses, or imbalances caused by poorly designed diets or adherence to a single recipe.
Author Mary Straus has been slaving over our series of articles on the nuts and bolts of home-prepared diets for more than six months. The first one in a planned series of five or six articles appeared very fortuitously in our April issue; the third installment appears on page 3 of this issue.
In the long run, owners will have to determine where on the scale of fear and trust they stand. Guardians who have little faith in the pet food companies and much fear about commercial products will have little choice but to begin making home-prepared diets for their pets. Those on the other end of the scale – with little fear and lots of trust – will keep buying the products they and their dogs like. And many of us will probably take a middle path – at least until the recall headlines stop appearing daily.
