Dog Food Blog

When importing pet food ingredients from all over the world it gets harder to ensure safety. The recent US wide recall of dog and cat food illustrates this. Dogs and cats died from acute renal failure after having eaten the suspect products. The alleged killer being melamine contaminations of wheat gluten imported from China. This disaster calls for new standards and new controls to ensure our pets stay happy, healthy and ALIVE !

Government agencies in the US are establishing new protocols to prevent the next disaster. But also the pet food industry is pro-actively taking action. ChemNutra, identified by the FDA as the distributor of the contaminated wheat gluten, has called for a national summit (ChemNutra imports about 4,000 tons of ingredients from China to the US every year). The summit will focus on all regions of the world, ingredients are imported from.

It’s not easy to keep track of product shipments. For instance, the Chinese supplier has also shipped wheat gluten to the Netherlands, so the FDA is also sampling all wheat gluten that arrives in the US coming from this European country.

Pet food ingredient importers, analysis laboratories, manufacturers and experts in product safety & analysis will be brought together to begin drafting import standards and specifications for pet food ingredients.

We can only hope the companies that import and use imported dog food ingredients will join forces and set aside competitive differences for a common purpose – the safety of our beloved furry friends. Sure companies are in it for the money, but when pets are dying the money won’t last very long… as they would be killing their customers! So even from a cold hearted money perspective, it is better when our pets live longer…. they will eat more and we will keep buying their products!

PS This one-day conference is scheduled for July 14, 2007 in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA. Registration forms and detailed information can be found at ChemNutra’s website.