Transparency Matters
Much of the products we consume are not exactly transparent. When picking out stuff in the grocery store, we may have special interests that push us to find out more about particular products. These could include keto friendly, kosher, some sustainability metric, organic, etc. Rarely does food safety come into question when looking at human food, because our food (however varietous of quality) is heavily regulated to ensure safety for human consumption. The same cannot be said for pet food.
The petfood industry is marred with vitamin toxicities, bacterial contaminations, non food contaminations, and even euthanasia contaminations. This all comes down to the fact that the pet industry has little to no regulations in place to keep pets safe. It is almost entirely up to pet food brands to keep our pets safe. This is what happens when the oversight boards (AAFCO) can be run by the same pet food companies that continuously put unsafe products out on the market. That’s right, AAFCO is not a governmental organization, they hold no proper regulatory power. They can also be run by representatives of brands with their own brand interests on the line “regulating” what goes into food, what “nutritional balance” must be met with food, what is “safe” for our pets, etc.
As more and more independant brands are being sold to large conglomerate corporations or ownership groups, the interests of our pets begin to wane. Transparency is not exactly a highlight of many of these larger groups, whose interests often lie solely with their profits and shareholders.
Headline Contaminations
In 2007, pets across the country were shocked to find their pets severely ill and often suddenly dead. Over 2500 pets were found ill and over 500 sadly passed due to what was believed to be a potential melamine contamination in chicken jerky. To this day the FDA has given no definitive conclusion the the case that impacted many families and their pets. Well meaning, loving pet owners were feeding their pets toxic treats because of a lack of regulation into what can legally go into our pets food.
At the time, much of the concern was the country of origin where the treats were produced. The reality is an American treat company chose to source their ingredients from a low quality source, wherever that source was from. There are just as many contaminations with origin in the USA as anywhere else in the world, so why put the importance there when we should be putting the importance on the AMERICAN company that was allowed by AMERICAN regulators to even sell this product in the first place.
In 2018, 27 brands of pet food had to be entirely recalled because of phenobarbital contamination. Now how would a euthanasia drug find its way into pet food? Well because of low quality rendering plants. With food items like meat by-product meal, there is little oversight into where those by-product foods are coming from. This means that euthanized animals made their way into pet food with the potential to poison our pets. Meals of this quality are entirely legal to use in pet food, mainly being reserved for some of the lowest quality pet foods on the market. Does that mean all by-product meal is contaminated? No, but it does mean that it very well could be at any given time. Not only that, but it clearly highlights the incredibly low quality nature of these types of food items. Food items that would never be found in human food, but can be found in some of the most popular pet foods and treats on the market.
There are countless cases of contaminants that crop up year after year. Some of them get caught in recalls, some of them don’t and pets get sick and die. Recalls happen with production at scale. Accidental batches with too much of one ingredient, errors with packaging, etc. But recalls because of literal poisons making it into foods should never be happening. While we will always be advocates for equal regulations for the food we feed our pets as the food we feed ourselves, transparency is an important tool we can use to be better consumers in the mean time. We hope with continued concern from pet parents like you, those regulations will come. Until that day, we will cheer on pet food brands that hold themselves accountable and give us the transparency our pets deserve.
What does transparency look like?
Transparency can present itself many ways. Brands like Open Farm and Farm Hounds for instance put their sourcing right on the bag. They also give you a QR code you can scan to look at exactly where they get their ingredients from. This puts the responsibility of quality out there for everyone to see. This can also help us to make better decisions when picking products. Other ways transparency may look like would be certification tags. Brands like Small Batch, Open Farm, The Honest Kitchen and more have certification tags like GAP certified, B Corp certified, Ocean Wise recommended, etc. This gives a third party seal of validation on claims a brand may make. Lastly, brands may rely on other governmental regulatory requirements to act as their seal of confidence. This can come into play if brands are produced outside of the USA or if they distribute to regions like the EU that may hold more specific pet food regulations in place. Brands like First Mate, Ziwipeak, and Farmina all fall here with their countries of origin having strict pet food quality standards and even animal husbandry or fishery standards. This can make third party certifications redundant.
Does any of this mean that contaminations don’t happen or that any of these brands are without flaw? Absolutely not, but it does give us as consumers further confidence in a product we are buying. In a country where brands and corporations quite literally write the laws, the best we can hope for is transparency. We will continue to advocate for more rigid regulations, disallowing rendered product in our foods and forcing pet food companies to properly take the responsibility they garner when choosing to produce pet products.
Further Reading
Dog Food Advisor - Recall Tracker
Gizmodo - How Does a Euthanasia Drug Keep Ending Up in Dog Food?
NBC News - Deaths of 500 dogs blamed on jerky treats, FDA says
Truth About Pet Food - 16 Years Later: Review of the Deadliest Pet Food Recall in History
Truth About Pet Food - Senator Rand Paul Destroyed Pet Food Safety
