P&G Responds to Pet Food Recall; This Is My 100th Posting

I'm very pleased to say that my 100th post will be about a topic that is very important to me. Last week, several pet-food manufacturers issued recalls due to contamination believed to have killed and sickened thousands of pets. The nationwide recall has been extended in recent days to additional manufacturers beyond the original recall of 95 brands by Canada's Menu Foods. This has caused several pet-food companies to respond to the issue quickly.

Colgate-Palmolive Co. recalled some of its Hill's Prescription Diet dry cat food, and Nestle Purina recalled some of its Alpo wet dog food with the affected wheat gluten. Both of those marketers also had some products affected by the original Menu Foods recall. Also, Del Monte Foods on March 31 recalled Jerky Treats and Gravy Train treats for dogs and some Pounce treats for cats. In addition, it pulled some wet dog food and treats it made for private-label brands sold by Wal-Mart Stores and Dollar General.

Personally, my two dogs were not affected by this incident. Therefore, I was unsure about the number of pets the contaminated food affected. Additionally, I wasn't sure about the conditions that the contaminated food had on pets. Therefore, I decided to do some background research.

I've found out that a lot of pet owners are really on top of this issue. Additionally, they are very open to blog about it. I came across one blog at Eternity Captured which highlights brands impacted by the recall. Also, several pet owners have left comments on the site regarding their pets reactions to the food. One pet owner named Mike said the following, "my dog has been throwing up the past two days. I fed him again this morning, and he looked at me like why am I forcing him to eat this food. He knows better than me that his food is poison. What can we do to wake up people to check the recalled brands and stop slowly killing their pets." This issue definitely warrants a lot of concern from pet food manufacturers. Hopefully this incident will lead the FDA to improve government regulations thus making sure pet-food manufactureres produce the highest quality foods for our pets.


P&G took out full-page ads in 59 daily newspapers on April 3, 2007 with a letter from employees of its Iams and Eukanuba brands to reassure pet owners that food remaining on the market is safe. The ad campaign is described as a "first step" by a P&G spokesman. Overall, I'm very impressed P&G's response to the issue. It is very important for a company to be proactive when its customers are having negative experiences with its products.

The following chart shows a trendline of discussion regarding the pet-food recall. Discussion about the issue peaked mid-March 2007. It has lowered since then. However, I feel this is an issue that will not go away anytime soon.




Here are my little furry children, Sam and Gracie.









Source: Ad Age