“Government agencies and the feed and food industries routinely screen grain for contamination; however, it’s the responsibility of the manufacturing company, i.e. the firm whose name is on the label, to produce a safe product and to take whatever steps are necessary to ensure that.”

Laura Alvey
Deputy Director, Communications Staff
FDA Center for Veterinary Medicine

In the month since Thanksgiving, there has been a flurry of pet food recalls due to elevated levels of aflatoxin.

The first recall in the series wasn’t a recall at all, according to the manufacturer. Procter & Gamble described its November 25th store-level removal of several Iams brand dry pet foods as a “product pull” and did not issue a news release until after Price Chopper – a regional supermarket chain – posted a notice of the action on its recall web page.

The Price Chopper notice was picked up by eFoodAlert, and readers of this site helped to publicize the “product pull” throughout the pet community. Price Chopper – possibly under pressure from Procter & Gamble – withdrew its recall notice for several days, before reposted it with additional explanation.

Events overtook this initial product withdrawal on December 6th, when Procter & Gamble announced the recall of a single Iams dry puppy food due to elevated levels of aflatoxin. Similar recall notices from several other pet food producers followed.

Today, FDA posted – for the first time – a recall notice dated December 12, 2011 issued by Petrus Feed and Seed Stores, Inc. (Alexandria, LA). The company recalled  21% Protein Dog Food in 40 lb Petrus Feed bags (Packaging date codes 4K1011 through 4K1307; Lot numbers 4K1011 through 4K1335), after elevated levels of aflatoxin were found in the corn used as an ingredient in the dog food. The recalled pet food was produced for Petrus by Cargill’s manufacturing facility located in LeCompte, Louisiana between December 1, 2010 and December 1, 2011.

The same Cargill facility also manufactured several other recalled brands of aflatoxin-contaminated dog food, including Arrow, River Run, and Marksman. It is “unlikely”, according to FDA Spokeswoman Laura Alvey that the recalled Iams puppy food was manufactured using the same corn that went into the Cargill-manufactured product.

“Aflatoxins,” Alvey explained in response to my request for comment, “are a naturally occurring toxin that develops when the mold Aspergillus species grow on the corn in the field or after harvest if it’s improperly dried and stored. Corn is a common ingredient used in both dry and wet pet foods,” she added.

The 2010 crop year was a wet one, and generated higher than usual levels of aflatoxin in the field. While this may have created special challenges for farmers and for companies such as Cargill and Iams, rapid quantitative tests for aflatoxins and other natural toxins are readily available. The manufacturers easily could have – and should have – tested the corn for aflatoxin before using it to produce pet food. There is no excuse for releasing product containing untested corn onto the market and allowing that product to remain on the market for as long as one year.

In my “Have Your Say!” survey of readers’ opinions of the five most significant stories of 2011, the Iams pet food recall story earned second place. I believe that this story is significant for two reasons:

1. It underscores the futility of trying to carry out a stealth recall in an era of instant communication.
2. It highlights the importance of preventative measures, including testing ingredients before incorporating them into a human or animal food product.

The one bright spot in this sorry saga is the ethical behavior of Price Chopper. This relatively small grocery chain advised its customers of the initial Iams “product pull” – complete with UPC and Lot codes – and offered its customers a full refund on these products. The company then had the guts to post an explanation of the sequence of events, making Procter & Gamble (owner of the Iams brand) look like a very shabby bunch of operators by comparison.

Kudos to Price Chopper’s management. May you continue to be guided by your sense of ethics and fair play in the years to come.

The following Guest Blog first appeared on Truth About Pet Food, and is reproduced here with the kind permission of its author, Susan Thixton.

Per Iams it was a Product Pull

The recall notice posted on the Price Chopper website, then promptly removed was “posted erroneously” according to a Iams Customer Service Representative. The notice that three varieties of Iams pet food tested with “elevated aflatoxin levels” wasn’t meant for public notice. It was a product pull, not a recall. Thanks to Price Chopper for doing right by petsumers or we wouldn’t have even known about this.

For those new to this website (and the truth about pet food), there is something you should be aware of. It is known in the industry as a ‘product pull’. We call it a silent recall. A product pull/silent recall is when a pet food manufacturer discovers a problem with a food – which could be serious or could be something insignificant – and in turn the pet food manufacturer alerts retail outlets to ‘pull’ the product from store shelves and return to the manufacturer.

Iams Customer Service told me this was a “product pull”. She stated “a small number of bags did not meet our specifications”. “This was not a consumer recall”. She also stated that Price Chopper “posted erroneously” the Iams notice to remove some pet foods from store shelves.

The same product pull notice “might have been sent to a couple of other stores” – but we don’t know who those other stores are.

But we do know (thanks to Price Chopper) that these three foods tested with “elevated aflatoxin levels”…
Iams Original with Chicken Cat Food
UPC 1901403915
Lot Number 12794177D3
Size 6.8 lbs.

Iams Original with Chicken Cat Food
UPC 1901410504
Lot Number 12794177I5
Size 4 lbs.

Iams Lamb Meal with Rice Dog Food
UPC 1901403735
Lot Number 12794177J4
Size 15 lbs.

Aflatoxin are “commonly found in corn, peanuts, cottonseed, milk, and tree nuts. After ingestion, aflatoxins are absorbed and carried to the liver via the circulatory system. They are then converted by the liver into toxic reactive epoxides which bind covalently to intracellular macromolecules such as DNA, RNA and protein enzymes, resulting in damage to liver cells. In addition to their hepatotoxic properties, aflatoxins are also carcinogenic. Mycotoxin contamination in pet food poses a serious health threat to pets.”
From “Mycotoxins and the pet food industry: Toxicological evidence and risk assessment” by Herman J. Boermans and Maxwell C.K. Leung.

Thank you to Price Choppers for doing the right thing and posting the notice that these pet foods contained elevated aflatoxin levels! You bothered to warn consumers that had already purchased these pet foods. That shows real concern and integrity in my book.

Iams, I would love to hear from you (I’m sure my readers would too) on just exactly what the ‘elevated levels of aflatoxin’ were. I will be glad to share your side of the story with everyone.

Two years ago, thousands of pet owners wrote and called their pet food companies asking to put an end to Silent Recalls. We asked all pet food manufacturers to participate in a program called Pet Food Recall First Alert; which meant the pet food manufacturer would agree to notify customers of any product pull or concern with a pet food. The following companies agreed…

• Nature’s Logic Pet Food
• Mulligan Stew Pet Food
• The Honest Kitchen Pet Food
• Wysong Pet Food
• Complete Natural Nutrition
• Solid Gold Pet Food
• Dogswell Pet Food
• Dr. Harvey’s Pet Food
• Fromm Family Pet Foods
• Redbarn Premium Pet Products
• Canine Caviar
• Kumpi Pet Foods
• Raw Health Pet Food
• Champion Pet Foods (Acana and Orijen)

Thank you to the above companies. Petsumers deserve to know if a pet food tests for elevated aflatoxin levels and any other possible health risk.

Silent recalls or product pulls are NOT good for anyone. Please – all pet food manufacturers – just stop for a moment and think about the pets and the families of those pets that might already be eating foods that you quietly remove from store shelves. Don’t those pets and those families deserve to know what is going on?

About the author: Susan Thixton is the publisher of TruthaboutPetFood.com. Dubbed The Caped Crusader for Safe Pet Food, she reports to a world of pet lovers the ‘truth’ behind the pet food label.

And in a final footnote to this story, I queried Price Chopper about the Iams “recall”, and received the following response earlier today:

“Thank you for your recent email.

For the most up to date information on the Iams recall, we would suggest you contact the manufacturer directly at 1-800-675-3849 or through their website at http://www.iams.com.”

If anyone has purchased one of the above Iams pet foods – same lot numbers, same UPC codes – please email Susan or post a comment below.