Pet Food Recalled After Deaths

Food Sold Under Iams, Eukanuba And Store Brands Linked To Deaths Of At Least 10 Cats And Dogs

(AP)  A major manufacturer of dog and cat food sold under Wal-Mart, Safeway, Kroger and other store brands recalled 60 million containers of wet pet food Friday after reports of kidney failure and deaths.

An unknown number of cats and dogs suffered kidney failure and about 10 died after eating the affected pet food, Menu Foods said in announcing the North American recall. Product testing has not revealed a link explaining the reported cases of illness and death, the company said.

“At this juncture, we're not 100 percent sure what's happened,” said Paul Henderson, the company's president and chief executive officer. However, the recalled products were made using wheat gluten purchased from a new supplier, since dropped for another source, spokeswoman Sarah Tuite said. Wheat gluten is a source of protein.

The recall covers the company's “cuts and gravy” style food, which consists of chunks of meat in gravy, sold in cans and small foil pouches between Dec. 3 and March 6 throughout the U.S., Canada and Mexico.

The pet food was sold by stores operated by the Kroger Company, Safeway Inc., Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and PetSmart Inc., among others, Henderson said.

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Click here for a list of recalled brands.

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The company said it manufacturers for 17 of the top 20 North American retailers. It is also a contract manufacturer for the top branded pet food companies, including Procter & Gamble Co.

P&G announced Friday the recall of specific 3 oz., 5.5 oz., 6 oz. and 13.2 oz. canned and 3 oz. and 5.3 oz. foil pouch cat and dog wet food products made by Menu Foods but sold under the Iams and Eukanuba brands. The recalled products bear the code dates of 6339 through 7073 followed by the plant code 4197, P&G said.

Menu Foods' three U.S. and one Canadian factory produce more than 1 billion containers of wet pet food a year. The recall covers pet food made at company plants in Emporia, Kan., and Pennsauken, N.J., Henderson said.

Henderson said the company received an undisclosed number of owner complaints of vomiting and kidney failure in dogs and cats after they had been fed its products. It has tested its products but not found a cause for the sickness.

“To date, the tests have not indicated any problems with the product,” Henderson said.

The company alerted the Food and Drug Administration, which already has inspectors in one of the two plants, Henderson said. The FDA was working to nail down brand names covered by the recall, agency spokesman Mike Herndon said.

Menu Foods is majority owned by the Menu Foods Income Fund, based in Ontario, Canada.

Henderson said the recall would cost the company the Canadian equivalent of $26 million to $34 million.


A complete list of the recalled products along with product codes, descriptions and production dates was available from the Menu Foods Web site. Information can also be obtained by calling 1-866-895-2708.

[sweetcider74]

On Monday 12 I gave my roth a can of dog food that she only gets once a year. It seem as soon as she ate the food she started to foam at the mouth and then vomiting but that wasn't easy for her.Then I was up with her at midnight cleaning up mess of vomit and holding her hand. She seem to be ok. but wouldn't go out side in the morning to go pee. daughter put her out before school thinking every thing was ok. Get home from work and sabrina is hot so we put her outside and all she did was walk around in circle and foaming at the mouth. she wouldn't drink or eat and if she did she would start to vomit. we took her in to the hospital and within 2 hour she was put down due to kidney failure. I can;t make it thou the day without say if i had given her the food she would be here with me today, Sabrina's friends hayle and balou the two kittens that grew up with her can understand why she not here they look for her all the time.
my heart is borke and i don't want to come home cause she not here. Miss you Sabrina

[amz1982]

My cat became sick last week, and was diagnosed with renal failure on Monday. There was no way to save her since almost 100% of her kidney function was gone, so on Tuesday she was put to sleep. I didn't find out about the recall until this past weekend, but by then it was too late - my cat was already gone. But, she did eat Special Kitty every day, and I checked the one package we had left in the pantry and it was on the recall list. I don't doubt that the ones she ate were on there as well.

[grace35829]

Punishment from God to Iams? Iams is been torturing their own test animals for their own good. Please see petition that I signed as well as other people against Iams cruelty. You can do the same by going to: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/995529744
This is what I wrote:
How can people be so cruel with helpless innocent animals that don't have a voice to defend themselves; and you,(Iams) claim that you love dogs & cats enough to make them healthy nutritious foods when you have your own defenseless animals suffering and you don't care about their wellbeing, "bunch of hypocrites", all you care about is the money you can put in your pockets by taking advantage of the poor and the helpless, SHAME ON YOU IAMS!!! But what can we expect from Iams, who's owner is Procter & Gamble; don't you all know that P&G is a satan's corp., & that the founder of P&G himself appeared on national TV around 10 or more years ago, and declared in front of millions of viewers that he had surrender his own soul to satan in exchange for satan to make him extremely wealthy?, what can we expect from someone like that with no conscience, no scruples, no principles; their beliefs are only based on the money they can make. I will let friends and family know about this horrendous things that Iams is allowing in their facilities. Let us all boycott Iams and all P&G products until they come to their senses and stop that horrific abuse to the ones that don't have a voice to defend themselves.

[cramos7]

I heard about the recall after I took my dog to the vet because he was vomiting alot for three days. He didn't check for anything but parvo. My dog came out negative for parvo, so I am thinking that he must have gotten sick from the iams dog food, because I noticed he wasn't feeling well after he ate the food. I am thinking of taking him to the vet again.

[farmgal2007-2009]

I have a 9 mo old Schipperke who I fed the foil pouch Ol Roy which she got 1/2 pouch twice a day. This morning I read about the pet food recall on my homepage and checked the codes with what I had on stock (purchased from Walmart) and they were definately included in the recall.
I then took my dog to the vet to have kidney blood test done and she is at the borderline of medium to bad. Definately not a good report for a puppy. Now I have to worry about each day whether she will get better or worse. I fully intend on making the petfood manufacturer pay my vet bill and any future bills for this problem. And they better pray I dont loose my pet. She means everything to me! I just lost a pet last year and couldnt handle loosing another.
Debi - Princeton, IL.

[silver9991]

zebras5544, the store did not know about the pet food being bad until yesterday or today. Also, you do have to look at the lot numbers being recalled.

[sullykimmo]

I am numb... Yesterday my two year old chihuahua dropped dead in my front yard. She was just on my lap as happy as could be.
I feed/fed her Authority brand from Petsmart.
So... what now? Quite frankly, a million dollars wouldn't mend my broken heart.

[mdc76082]

The way I see it is this. Nothing is 100% sure and it never will be. Animals and people will die because of systems that are not 100%. Remember, I said nothing is 100%. Like FractalDonut said in the post, "The residual of this petfood recall, is that the system works." This is true and this is why we have checks & balances in place for both animals and humans. Unfortunately, some may have to pay the ultimate price...but nothing is a 100% guarantee. I can live with that. Also, for humans at least, that's why there's civil court for wrongful death lawsuits. It's not a perfect world.

[candojj1]

Microsoft also provides a free excel (.xcl) viewer. Just Google excel viewer download and download the program and install it so you can read the brands of food.

[candojj1]

If you want to open .xls files download openoffice.org

[candojj1]

You must assume that all these products will be on the shelves except if you shop at petco, petsmart or a large pet store. The only liability is the monetary value of the animal and this you must prove with a receipt. No one can force a supermarket to recall pet food. That would be a loss to the market. There is no FDA looking out for the welfare of the animal. The best you can do is return all your cat and dog food to the market and tell them it was recalled and start feeding something else for a while. I know my cat eats raw ground meat or fish. She eats Purina IUD tuna. There's other food out there.
And our dog was a garbage disposal. You put anything in front of him he'd eat it. But alas he's passed.
Sorry for your losses.
We did live abroad. And the country had a labor shortage and Thai workers came in as guest workers. All of a sudden peoples pets began disappearing. The workers had no conception of pets and in their culture the animal was just something for a barbecue.
So cheer up. Consider it a bad day Like having two flat tires and your car rolling over and walking away from it. Thank God your still alive.

[fayelindasue]

My cat died in December of last year from kidney failure after eating some of these products including Special Kitty. He was an old cat but in very good health until then.

[rmquiroz]

My dog Sarah died died from kidney failure last week. Her diet consited of moist and dry food. It was very sudden. Sarah was only 6 years old, so it was not because of age. I want to know the products that could be included in this recall. I called the store where I buy the dog food and still the product that I bought for Sarah is still on the shelves.

[tootsiebarel]

On http://www.menufoods.com/recall/ when you click on the info for cat food or dog food it brings up a menu of foods, when you try to view any of the foods they are all posted in .xls files. Hardly no one has Excel in their computer and these seem to be Excel files, so why are they posted on that site as such? The Investor Relations file is a pdf file so all the investors can view it, but the info for the consumer who has pets in need of this information, the only option is .xls files?

Something is wrong here! And you cannot contact them at all about it.

[zebras5544]

I bought about 30 cans of the Companion dog food on March 6 at a local STOP and Shop store. The store discounted (50%)for some of the companion brands of dog and cat food that were being discontinued. TO my shock I looked on the list this morning and these were the recalled brands. THe store knew they were bad and sold them anyway. This is horrible. Did this happen to anyone else?

[zebras5544]

I bought about 30 cans of the Companion dog food on March 6 at a local STOP and Shop store. The store discounted (50%)for some of the companion brands of dog and cat food that were being discontinued. TO my shock I looked on the list this morning and these were the recalled brands. THe store knew they were bad and sold them anyway. This is horrible. Did this happen to anyone else?

[callietzu]

My dog almost died last week-end from kidney & bladder problems. After two days spent at my local vet's and then surgery at an emergency animal clinic, she is better. Now to hear this!! I will be following this closely!!

[fractaldonut]

The residual of this petfood recall, is that the system works. While no one in the petfood industry would tolerate a single death due to diet, the fact that this precautionary recall was enacted with not more than 10 deaths across the US, proves the industry's vigilence. Every gram of petfood produced can be traced back to any container, any process, any ingrediant, any supplier, and any analyticals. Every co-pack contract custumer has stop-gap measures in place to halt distribution of suspect product.

[logengr]

All you people forget. "You get what you pay for". Your government cannot get to you so they will go to your most loved and precious ones, YOUR PETS!

[dukeudevil]

Let's see if the lawsuits place a proper (and not trivial) value on the lives and health of any affected pets. That's when we'll find out just how much these companies/brands care about our pets--and us as customers.

That said, as for me and my pets, these brands--if liable--are now a distant memory, never to be considered again. I will not tolerate anyone hurting my family, which definitely includes all of my pets.

(To educate any manufacturers' lawyers reading this, dearly loved pet companions are not just "animals" of trivial monetary value. You might remember that as you try to buy off any now very sad pet owners.)