60 Million Containers of Pet Food Are Being Recalled

The FDA has announced a recall of 60 million containers of pet food.

The food was produced in a United States facility belonging to Canadian pet food manufacturer Menu Foods, Inc. Menu Foods is a private label company, which means that its foods are packaged and sold under many different brand names.

The recalled items are all "cuts and gravy" style dog and cat food produced by Menu Foods between December 3 and March 6 in the company's Emporia, Kansas facility. Some of the food was sold in cans, and some of it in pouches.

Menu Foods sells its products in the United States, Canada, and Mexico, but apparently only pets in the U.S. have been affected. So far, nine cats and one dog died of kidney failure after eating the contaminated food.

Stores where the food was sold include Wal-Mart, PetSmart, Pet Valu, Kroger, Ahold, and Safeway.

The company has posted on its website lists of the brands that are affected by the recall. There are too many brand names to list here, but they include major brands such as Eukanuba, Iams, and Science Diet. Altogether, 40 brands of cat food and 49 brands of dog food have been recalled. To see the lists, go to the Menu Foods website (www.menufoods.com/recall), or you can call the company at 1-866-895-2708.

If you have any of the items that are on the recall lists, do not feed the food to your pet. If your pet has already eaten the food, call your vet if you see any symptoms of kidney failure -- that would be loss of appetite, vomiting, or lethargy.

The company has been testing its products trying to find the source of the contamination, but so far they don't know what happened.

Food contamination has been in the news a lot lately. Mostly we hear about contamination of foods meant for people, but there have also been recent recalls of pet food in South Africa and the United States.

Sources

"Company Recalls Millions Of Pet Food Products," WESH 2 News, March 17, 2007

"Recall of Pet Foods Manufactured by Menu Foods, Inc.," Press Release from the Food and Drug Administration, March 17, 2007, www.fda.gov

Menu Foods has put up information about the recall on its website at www.menufoods.com/recall/