The Aftermath of the Pet Food Recalls

[Melody]

Since we broke this news unofficially first in the forum world...lol, I've tried to keep y'all posted.

The aftermath includes settlements and a whole new awareness of safety procedures and ingredient quality. We've learned that maximum control is in the hands of those companies that produce their own foods. There is a more loyal following for the 'all natural', less processed, and homemade foods. Arrests have been made and people have had to accept that this could have happened to ANY brand with the standards/regulations/testing as it was. It has resulted in improvements overall, albeit at a great emotional or financial cost for some.

The fish community was impacted with the following recalls:

HBH Crab and Lobster Bites 1.3oz
HBH Baby Bites 1.2oz
HBH African Cichlid Attack
HBH Super Cichlid Sinkers 29oz
HBH Goldfish Bites 1.5oz
HBH Goldfish Nibblets 4.3oz
HBH Shrimp Pellets
HBH Oscar Bites 1oz
HBH Oscar Grow 3.8oz
HBH Oscar Show 8oz
Sergeant's Atlantis Betta Food, 1.2 oz
Sergeant's Atlantis Color Enhance Tropical Fish Flake Food, 0.88 oz.
Sergeant's Atlantis Goldfish Flake Food
Sergeant's Atlantis Tropical Fish Flake Food
Topfin Shrimp Pellets
Zeigler crumbled & pellet shrimp feeds

There have been no new recalls since August, 2007.

Menu Foods has suffered a great financial loss:

Menu Foods in Canada has been hit hard by last year's pet food scare involving Chinese melamine. The company posted a net loss of $62 million for fiscal 2007. ~ All About Feed (http://www.allaboutfeed.net/home/id102-39324/menu_foods_posts_62m_net_loss_for_2007.html) (click link for story)

Some hard lessons learned by everyone. Hopefully we'll continue to see positive results.

[Melody]

CBC did an article after the recall which goes into making your own pet food and includes recipes. It doesn't have fish food, but the concept & explanations are interesting to the fish-cooks too.

Home-cooked options (http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/consumers/pet-food-alternatives.html)

The skinny on making Fido's dinner

[KnaveTO]

I have started checking the manufacturing location on the bags of dog food and the cans of fish food I purchase. If I see the words Made in China it goes back on the shelf. As of now anything that my pets consume is either made in the United States or Canada. I refuse to poison my pets.

[fishykisses]

unfortunately, the label can say made in canada but that's not always the case. The product can be caught here but sent to china to be processed and sent back.

[ChrissyFishy]

Menu foods is in canada but they don't get the ingredients from canada all the time.:no:

[Melody]

Exactly - it can be manufactured anywhere and they can still buy the ingredients elsewhere. Half the time even they don't know where it came from. Then there are those who have the food manufactured by a third party so they have even less control over where the ingredients come from.:rolleyes:

[James]

Just having the label "Made In Canada" is not all that accurate. Its the same in the US, if 51% of the cost of putting it on the store shelf is spent in Canada, they can say made in Canada. There are products that say Made In Canada, where that 51% of the cost is in the container and marketing, but the product is made else where, IE: Japan, China ect.

We have at least two products at the Univeristy that say Made In Canada (I suspect many more), but those chemicals are only made in 3 plants, and none of those plants are in Canada or the US. It does give thought, that the bottle, cost more than the product!

[Melody]

Scary stuff :wideeyed:

[CACAdmin]

Finally, 'Made in Canada' might actually start to mean that... well, with regard to food for human consumption anyways. It was announced yesterday that effective Dec 31st that food products "will require both that the contents and processing be Canadian to qualify for the Product of Canada label. ":red_dance: It's about time! Also, if imported foods are processed here in Canada, then they'll be labelled something like: "Made in Canada from imported ingredients."

Government of Canada News Release here (http://www.healthycanadians.ca/media/2008-06-15_e.html).

[Melody]

:Applaud: I wonder how many suffered as we waited and were duped by what amounts to be false advertising?

[CACAdmin]

Food is IMO the most important place to start but now of course, they need to extend it to cover everything, not just food. I wonder how long that will take?:rolleyes:

[Melody]

Probably as long as it takes to get to the next election :rolleyes: .

[CACAdmin]

...or the one after that. :laugh: