Just when you thought pet-food recalls might be over — they’re not.
After a string of recalls that spanned the first half of this year and involved Diamond Pet Foods products and the risk of Salmonella, a new recall was announced last weekend — this time involving products manufactured by Mars Petcare US and the risk of foreign objects being mixed into the food.
Announced last Saturday, June 30, it’s a voluntary recall of a limited range of three varieties of Pedigree weight-management canned dog foods “due to a potential choking risk,” according to the Wall Street Journal’s Market Watch. The specific products being recalled are these:
+ Pedigree Healthy Weight Premium Ground Entree in Meaty Juices
+ Pedigree Weight Management Meaty Ground Dinner Beef & Liver Dinner in Meaty Juices
+ Pedigree Weight Management Meaty Ground Dinner Chicken & Rice Dinner in Meaty Juices
They have a lot code printed on the end of the can that begins with 209, 210, 211 or 212 and a best before date between 2/24/2014 and 3/23/2014.
It seems that small pieces of blue plastic “entered the food during the production process. The source of the plastic has been identified and the issue resolved,” reads the press release. Mars Petcare US warns that the food should not be given to pets or sold in stores. All three of the affected lines were distributed to retail consumers throughout the United States.
If you have purchased affected product, discard the food or return it to the retailer for a full refund or exchange. “While a small number of consumers have reported finding the plastic pieces, we have not received any reports of injury or illness associated with the affected product.”
Mars Petcare US is working with distributors and the public to ensure that the recalled products are no longer sold and are removed from inventory.
No other Pedigree products, wet or dry, are affected.
We are lucky to live in a time and place in which companies respond quickly and ethically to potential dangers in their products — and then promptly announce these potential dangers while working with distributors, retailers and consumers to ensure that the products are discarded, not consumed.
Sure, the endpoint is that these companies don’t want to be sued when and if their products harm people or animals. And sure, publicly exposing potential risks in their own products — usually involving slipups in the manufacturing process which could have been avoided — causes irreparable damage to their reputations. For companies, it’s a which-is-worse kind of equation. But whatever motivates their honesty, we should be grateful. How long were Chinese manufacturers putting melamine into pet-food ingredients — because it was easy and cheap — before a wave of pet deaths alerted the world?
