If some pet foods are better than others why are they all manufactured in the same plant?

Question

I am referring to the menu foods recall. There are so many different brands and they all came from the same place. Does this mean they are all of the same quality?

Answer 1

Basically yes though some may have more meat added than others or contain a different mix of ingredients but they are all of mid to low quality at least the ones involved in the recall that Menufoods makes

Some people have stated the food was made in Canada that is incorrect, the plants that produced the recalled food is in the US made at the Kansas and New Jersey plants, they have another plant in South Dakota that was not affected

Q: So the FDA doesn't have inspectors in pet food plants?

A: Not always. In the case of Menu Foods, FDA inspectors had never set foot inside the Kansas plant until this incident. "Their priority is human food and human safety," Aldrich says
: If Menu made all these foods for all of these companies, are they all the same? Does it pay to buy higher-priced food?

A: It may. Even though Menu made foods for a large number of companies, they aren't all the same. Different companies have different recipes.

: Blogs and discussions this week are full of chatter by people who have lost pets or had pets fall ill and who want to file lawsuits against pet food companies. Can they?

A: They can, but it's a difficult legal case to make.

"A few states, Washington in particular, do allow emotional distress damages to a pet owner if the pet was 'maliciously harmed.' Most states still view pets as property," so potential damages are limited, says Bill Marler of Marler Clark, a Seattle law firm. He says pet owners rarely can win the type of pain-and-suffering damages possible in cases involving human victims.

That hasn't stopped people from trying. On Tuesday, Chicago law firm Blim & Edelson filed a class-action suit in federal court against Menu Foods. The suit says the company acted negligently by failing to prevent the tainted food from reaching the public and was too slow to issue the recall, resulting in more pets being harmed.

"We believe those types of damages will be applicable," says Jay Edelson, a lawyer with the firm.

"I know a lot of people say, 'It's just a dog, just a cat.' " says Goodhart, who is not involved in the Chicago lawsuit. "But these kids are my family. I don't rank them up there with my kids, but they're pretty close, and they deserve higher standards for their food."



Bonsylar is wrong I am sad to say, a few people have been contacting some of the manufacturers she named and asking them point blanks if their canned foods are being manufactured by menufoods and the answer is yes, just in one of their other plants



Canidae states on their website, the their cans food is not made at the "affected plant" menufoods has more than one canning plant in the US, it is made by themn just happens to be at one of their other plants,. Innova(naturapets) is also made by menufoods but also not at the affected plant,
The reason these foods are not recalled is that they do not contain wheat gluten, they have their own recipes and quality standards and inspections are done on all ingredient used in the food according to their quality registrations , and because of that they are made at a seperate plant location since the inspection standards and food qualities are so different, the better quality foods use usda government inspected meats so you cannot have rendered meats in the same plant also each of the brand will be made in a seperate area, for example the EVO being a grain free food cannot be made on the same line as a food that uses grains.
Compare the difference in ingredients from a recalled food
this is canned EVO there is no grains at all in this food, as a result it is expensive to make and to buy
Turkey
Chicken
Turkey Broth
Chicken Broth
Chicken Meal
Herring
Carrots
Whole Eggs
Salmon Meal
Natural Flavors
Guar Gum
Seaweed Extract
Apples
Tomato Flakes
Cottage Cheese
Herring Oil
Potassium Chloride
Apple Fiber
Inulin
Vitamin C
Sea Salt
Choline Chloride
Sunflower Oil
Taurine
Beta Carotene
Vitamins/Minerals

compare to
Canned Iams Slices with Chicken in Gravy
Ingredients: Meat Broth, Chicken, Poultry Liver, Wheat Gluten, Dried Beet Pulp (sugar removed), Meat By-Products, Natural Flavors, Fish Oil (preserved with mixed Tocopherols), Guar Gum, Salt, Potassium Chloride, Sodium Carbonate, DL-Methionine, Caramel, Vitamins (Vitamin E Supplement, Vitamin A Acetate, Vitamin D3 Supplement, Vitamin B12 Supplement, Thiamine Mononitrate (source of vitamin B1), Niacin, Calcium Pantothenate, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride (source of vitamin B6), Riboflavin Supplement (source of vitamin B2), Folic Acid, Biotin), Minerals (Ferrous Sulfate, Zinc Oxide, Copper Proteinate, Manganous Sulfate, Potassium Iodide, Sodium Selenite), Choline Chloride, Sodium Phosphate, Taurine

Where ever you see unspecified meat in the ingredients it could contain road kills, euthanized pets, livestock that died of disease so these meats are not USDA food inspected even the type of fish used is not specified

Because broth is the first ingredient they need the wheat gluten to help thicken the food

Take a look at this article written in 2001
the writers pretty much predicted this would happen
http://www.newconnexion.net/article/07-01/petfood.html

and none of the food brands they recommended ended up being recalled and none would have been produced in the same plant that had the recall

The other scary part is the pet food manufacturers also contract out dry foods

In 2001, Menu bought the wet food operations of Doane Pet Care, a major contract producer of dry foods in the United States, for $15 million.

this was 3 years after Doane had a major recall of their kibbles

In 1999, another fungal toxin triggered the recall of dry dog food made by Doane Pet Care at one of its plants, including Ol’ Roy (Wal-Mart’s brand) and 53 other brands.

If it happened again today, how many brands of dry kibbles would involve????

30 years ago stories like this would not have occured at least not on a scale like it has, because each company processed their own foods

from Wikipedia

"Most commercial dog foods are made from materials unusable or less desirable for human consumption. These may include:

Meat by-products or digests
Meat-and-bone meals
Grain by-products
Less expensive dog foods generally include less meat, and more animal by-products and grain "fillers". The most expensive dogs foods may be made of ingredients suitable for human consumption, organic products, or free-range meats"

So unless you are buying the top of the line foods you are putting your pets at greater risk because the ingredients used to create them are not those fit for human consumption so will not have the quality testing done on ingredients that the top of the line foods have.

A lot of people snub their noses at holistic style pet foods thinking they are the same just selling at a higher price tag.
But in the last 10 years there has been 3 major food recalls none of the holistic foods where involved, the food were always mid to low quality.

According to yesterdays announcement of poison being found in the food Paul Henderson president of Menufoods has announced the company will pay owners vet bills

http://usatoday.feedroom.com/ifr_main.jsp?nsid=d5b9b6dc4:11182b88ca5:-8ff&fr_story=FEEDROOM186012&st=1174731911625&mp=WMP&cpf=true&fvn=9&fr=032407_051230_5b9b6dc4x11182b88ca5xwd1c&rdm=502242.61749015795

Answer 2

I can't imagine where you got the idea to give your Yorkie pup fruit loops for low blood sugar... It's really important that you do your research on these small breed dogs as you can end up with some pretty huge vet bills playing things by ear. Low blood sugar is called hypoglycemia and you can avoid it by making sure that your puppy has several small meals per day. Other things that can cause low blood pressure are stress, cold, malnutrition and intestinal parasites. If you notice that your pup is lethargic or weak and appears ill, that may be due to low blood sugar and you want to have something on hand like Karo syrup that you can rub on the gums. Low blood sugar is serious and can kill your pup. Make sure to see a qualified vet to determine the cause of the condition if it ever happens. If the breeder already has the pup on Beniful, you should keep the dog on this product while you switch over to something else so as to avoid tummy upset and diarrhea. Diarrhea is a huge problem with small pups as they can dehydrate fast and you want to avoid that. There are plenty of good, premium, human grade dog foods out there. It's good to avoid foods that have grains due to potential allergy problems. You might want to try a EVO made by Natura to keep your pup healthy. Most dogs love the taste as it's very high protein with no grains at all. Good luck with your pup and do your research and become an expert so that you can give it the best life possible and pass on your good knowledge!

Answer 3

Its about ingredients.
Different ingredients go into different products in different amounts.
That's where the problems are.

All of those foods are poor quality anyway. Look into Innova, California Natural, Wellness, Canidae, Felidae, Artemis. All are great, all have websites.

Answer 4

Well it seems you are actually paying more money for a brand name, not superior quality. Haven't we heard for years that generic brands of human foods were as good as name brands? In most case this is true. There are exceptions of course but the preference is usually personal.

Answer 5

Advertising is what costs so much. Same with all the peanut butter that was recalled recently. They were made in the same place, but are marked differently so the companies can make money.

Answer 6

I wonder how they are going to explain why they can justify such price ranges. It's all the same with a different label on the can/bag what a bunch scammers.

Answer 7

I don't know but I was hearing that in the news they were saying the same thing that some brand have the same mix and they sale it at different prices that's wrong....but thank GOD I didn't use any of those bands...

Answer 8

not really sure -- probably not the same quality -- different formulas but using some similiar ingredients -- I was really suprised when they said the contaminated wheat glutten came from China --

Answer 9

They did not come from the same place the grain that they used came from China and was contaminated with rat poison. The different proccessing for the different foods for animals is still the same. It is just their source of grain for the food was bad. Hope this helps....Alda

here is one of the sites

http://www.wsbtv.com/family/11346835/detail.html

Answer 10

The recent recall of "Menu" pet foods involved an ingredient added to the food: "gluten fibers"(from wheat, a byproduct of wheat milling); The REASON this would have infected the food is because MILLED WHEAT, RICE, BARLEY, RYE, CORN, etc. ALL attract rodents while being stored, after milling. The Chinese do not use the type of rat poison allowed in the US; they use a type FORBIDDEN in the US. The solution to the problem is to go back to the STORAGE of the wheat gluten, the source of the problem.

NOW< my question is: just how much of these "gluten fibers" (wheat gluten) has also gotten into our human food chain SINCE this WORLD FREE TRADE has forced our food manufacturers to use ingredients, here in the human food chain here in the US from countries such as China WHOSE food storage and possessing does not (evidently) use the same guidelines as the US?

IF this can happen on such a large scale to our pet food industry, WHAT is to keep it from happening to our human food industry?

WHAT other issues (such as other ingredients from other nations, what they use to correct problems that are NOT legal in the US) now need to be looked at considering this massive event? Has ANYONE thought of this or is it just going to be dropped "to avoid a international incident"?

Thanks

Answer 11

yes the pblm of oligopoly and monopolies. no competition hurts quality thus hurts consumers=pets sick.