pet connection

In an epic example of missing the point, Wysong pet food company has updated its recall information to include the following Q&A (h/t to reader Sandi Shaw):

I am seeing many bad and scary comments on the Internet. Who am I to believe?

The Internet provides a means for anyone to say anything without regard to merit. We have provided the facts with regard to this incident. We are the only ones who know them.

Is that not totally awesome? I mean, how many companies really are willing to come right out and say something like that?

It seems Wysong took exception to some earlier internet reporting (including, apparently, ours) about its handling of the recall and what some saw as inadequate efforts to notify those who might have purchased the affected foods. And just who was the authority the company invoked to demonstrate it had handled the matter with the highest standard of responsiveness?

The FDA.

No, really:

We did all we could think of to do as fast as we could. This includes contacting the FDA. After days of review by them at our corporate and manufacturing sites, they advised that we could not have reasonably done more than we did. The matter was of small enough consequence that we have even been told by the FDA that a news release is not necessary.

Yes, the villains of the pet food recall themselves, whose efforts to track sick and dead pets were called out in Congress as a national disgrace, who completely failed to keep melamine and related compounds out of the human food chain, who still don’t inspect imported foods even after the seemingly unending series of contamination incidents involving human foods and drugs as well as pet food.

Let me be blunt here. The fact that processed foods can become contaminated is not exactly breaking news. And even companies with good practices and strong quality assurance systems can have problems. In fact, sometimes food we make ourselves at home spoils or becomes contaminated. That’s not the issue here.

The issue is transparency. The issue is rapid and effective corporate communication and good citizenship. The issue is protecting your customers. It’s an issue that’s bigger than the pet food industry — in fact, it’s bigger than industry itself, as it applies to corporations, government, and all kinds of communities.

Do you have a problem? Did something, big or small, go wrong? Be honest. Be fast. Be open. When things go wrong, stand up and make them right. That’s what sets the great institutions apart from the rest.

Whining that bloggers are mean? We call that FAIL.

A week after notifying retailers, Wysong Pet Foods just put a notice on their website about a recall. Via Therese at PetSitUSA.com, from Wysong:

The following batches of Wysong Canine Diets Maintenance™ and Senior™ have shown above acceptable moisture levels and may contain mold.

Wysong Maintenance™: lot #: 090617
Wysong Maintenance™: lot #: 090624
Wysong Maintenance™: lot #: 090706
Wysong Maintenance™: lot #: 090720
Wysong Senior™: lot #: 090623

We ask that if you have received any of these Wysong products to please not feed them, and contact Wysong for product replacement.

Email: Wysong@Wysong.net
Subject: Product Replacement

Alternatively, please return or exchange at the store from which you purchased the product. Credit will be issued via our Distributors to the Retailer.

We apologize for the inconvenience.

How about apologizing for taking a week to tell pet owners about this risk to their dogs? When are pet food companies going to understand that every single day they delay has the potential to harm or even kill pets, and is destroying, buried press release by buried press release, consumer confidence in the pet food industry?

Premium Edge, a line manufactured by Diamond Pet Foods, is withdrawing (one of the words du jour that pet food companies use to avoid the word “recall”) its Premium Edge Finicky Adult Cat and Premium Edge Hairball formulas due to a dangerous thiamine deficiency in the foods.

One of my readers wrote me about this yesterday, but I couldn’t find anything about it on the company’s web site. I phoned them, but they didn’t return the call.

So I tried again today, and was directed to this new online statement:

Diamond Pet Foods has withdrawn from distribution the following date codes of Premium Edge Finicky Adult Cat and Premium Edge Hairball cat: RAF0501A22X 18lb., RAF0501A2X 6 lb., RAH0501A22X 18 lb., RAH0501A2X 6lb. The calls from pet owners or veterinarians regarding this issue have been centered in the Rochester, NY area. All retail outlets shipped the above lots were contacted, asking them to pull the product from the store shelves. The retailers were also asked to contact their customers via email or telephone requesting them to check the date code of the food. However, if you or anyone you know has these date codes of Premium Edge cat food, please return them to your retailer.

Symptoms displayed by an affected cat will be neurological in nature. Any cats fed these date codes that display these symptoms should be immediately taken to a veterinarian.

Product testing proved no contaminants were discovered in the cat food; however the cat foods were deficient in thiamine. Diamond tracked the vitamin premix lot number that was utilized in these particular cat foods and have performed testing on another lot of Premium Edge cat food that used the same vitamin premix, and it was not deficient in thiamine. No other neurological signs have been reported on any other product manufactured by Diamond Pet Foods.

The affected cats were quite ill, mostly with neurological symptoms. The first sign was a lack of interest in eating, followed by symptoms including muscular weakness, vomiting, lethargy,rigid posture, circling, increased respiratory rate, lack of recognition of their owners, dilated pupils, and seizures.

Fortunately the cats have responded to thiamine supplementation and hospitalization, and my reader reported that Diamond is footing the bills for treatment.

This is just one more example of companies not getting it. Don’t hope these things won’t leak out; they will.  The minute a product problem is suspected, be open about it. Stop trying to call it something other than a recall when you pull your product off store shelves, and if animals are getting sick, blast it all over the PR channels, and make sure veterinarians are aware of the problem.

Otherwise, these endless small stories, buried on corporate web sites and dragged into the light of day by grieving pet owners, will turn into nothing but death by a thousand tiny cuts for the pet food industry, eroding consumer confidence and damaging companies’ reputations beyond repair.

It started out as a rumor, but one of Nutro’s “Ambassadors” just confirmed it on her Twitter feed: Nutro is “voluntarily withdrawing” — or, in plain English, recalling — some puppy food sold through PetSmart and Petco stores:

EdnaAtNutro @cvec Hi! I’m with Nutro. Re: plastic-During a maint. shutdown, a bump cap inadvertently made its way into our mfg. process equipment….

EdnaAtNutro @cvec Nutro audited 3000 bags of potentially affected finished product that never left our mfg site.

EdnaAtNutro @cvec Out of abundance of caution, Nutro voluntarily retrieved pot. affected product in a small number of PS/PC stores.

EdnaAtNutro @cvec Consumers who have purchased pot. affected product should return it to their retailer or contact Nutro’s Consumer Care @ 800- 833-5330

My favorite question for Edna, and one I’d like to see an answer to from the company:

kittymadgrrrr @EdnaAtNutro perhaps Nutro should post this at their website?

Indeed.

One of our readers emailed PetSmart about the recall, and received this reply:

Thank you for contacting PetSmart. Nutro has done a voluntary product withdrawal. This was done by the company for certain Nutro products and size. The affected items were Nutro Ultra Puppy 4.5 lb bags and Nutro Natural Choice Chicken, Rice and Oatmeal Puppy Small Bites in 5lb bags. While we have not been notified of any injury or illness related to these products, Pet Parents who have purchased these products should immediately stop feeding the food to their pets.

Because the withdrawal of these items only affects certain sized packages, you can return these to your nearest PetSmart to exchange the affected product for an alternate-sized package of the same food or a full refund.

If you have any more questions about this withdrawal, please contact Nutro customer service at 1-800-833-5330 or visit www.nutroproducts.com.

Again, we would like to reiterate that this is a voluntary Nutro product withdrawl.

I find the whole “voluntary.. withdrawal” thing so aggravating. Since FDA does not have the authority to order pet food recalls (or human ones, for that matter), all recalls are voluntary.

Including the ones that get spun into “withdrawals.”

Long story short: Companies, stop parsing words. Announce clearly and early, and don’t fantasize that you’ll be able to bring this in under the radar. You won’t. It just makes you look like you have something to hide, and erodes consumer confidence.

From VIN News, color us so not surprised:

More than two years after the largest pet-food recall in history, federal investigators maintain that the Food and Drug Administration did not do its job properly.

What’s more, FDA lacks the statutory authority to impose recalls and penalize companies for recall violations — a lack of power that worked against the agency in 2007, as officials attempted to crack down on melamine-laced pet food products now linked to the deaths and illnesses of thousands of dogs and cats.

The assessment comes from the Office of Inspector General’s (OIG) audit of FDA’s role in the 2007 pet food recall, a scandal that involved 60-million containers of pet food in the United States, most manufactured by Menu Foods Limited and sold under 95 brand names. The report, requested by Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, chairman of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, makes a series of recommendations for strengthening FDA’s recall authority and improving its effectiveness in monitoring food recalls.

Read the rest.  Heckuva job, Brownie.