Nature's Variety "Recalls" Two Foods

Nature's Variety recalled two foods this week.

Nature’s Variety recently identified two lots of Freeze Dried product that didn’t meet our quality standards. These products do not represent a health hazard to your pet. We have voluntarily withdrawn distribution of these specific products:

• Freeze Dried Raw Chicken Formula (UPC # 69949 60151) with a “best if used by” date of 05/25/10
• Freeze Dried Raw Beef Formula (UPC # 69949 60251) with a “best if used by” date of 05/25/10

Our distributor and retailer partners have kept control of these products, and because we retrieved these products so quickly, it is very unlikely that you purchased this batch of food. If, however, you believe you may have purchased one of these products, you may contact Nature’s Variety at 1.888.519.PETS (7387) for a full refund or replacement.

You can read the full details here.

I spend quite a bit of time with food safety QA folks for food, and this is a very strategic announcement - but in my opinion a little shady. There could literally be hundreds of reasons (if their QA dept is properly doing their job) on how a product could fail their quality standards, ranging from a packaging defects, physical properties (size of the kibble was wrong, not properly blended), chemical properties (contained unintentional chemicals that are bad for the dog, like lead), sensory properties (the food smelled or tasted bad) to microbiological properties, such as testing failures for salmonella or E. Coli contamination.

With an announcement like this - with no specific reason, I'm left to my own devices on why they are withdrawing their product. A little more background here - products are not typically withdrawn for anything other than chemical or microbiological testing failures. Sensory or physical property test failures may reformulate the product, but they just switch over production - not withdraw or recall.

Now, I realize the other blogs out there were commending Nature's Varietyfor not supporting the hype of another food recall. While this is commendable, I would still be interested in why they are withdrawing these products at this time. If it's not serious - then why hide it? I would like to think that most of us understand production problems, and cudos for catching it early and doing something about it. But, if you are a repeat offender of introducing salmonella into your foods, you have some major production or plant issues, and I want to know about that as it influences my decision to purchase those products.

Not telling me what the issues was puts the black mark against your brand no matter what - so if this was something as simple as a coloration issue, I think Nature's Variety messed up big time. I appreciate transparency.

I've heard from other industry professionals that Nature's Variety has been sliding downhill for some time now, that it used to be a great food, but hasn't been that for some time. This latest recall is not really s surprise to me. Personally I hate to see pet food products slide backwards when there are so few really good ones out there. I'd push Nature's Vareity to up their production standards and bring back the "really good food" they were once known for. The market's got plenty of cheap, by-product, "made-in-China", poor ingredient low quality products out there - we need more better products.