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Balance Pet Foods,® Inc. Voluntary Nationwide Recall on Specific
Recalled Dog & Cat Food Products NO. The rice and brown rice are not a problem. The problem is rice protein concentrate that is only used in the eight products involved in the recall. I’ve heard the venison is a problem, is this true? NO. The rice protein concentrate is the problem, and is only used in the products involved in the recall. What products are being recalled? Venison
and Brown Rice Dry Dog Formula What products are NOT BEING RECALLED? None of our other products are being Recalled. THE FOLLOWING PRODUCTS ARE NOT BEING RECALLED: DRY DOG & CAT FOOD
FORMULAS: DOG TREATS CANNED DOG AND CAT FOODS FROZEN DOG FOOD FORMULAS What products have rice protein concentrate? Venison
and Brown Rice Dry Dog Formula Of what origin are the ingredients in your dry dog and cat foods? Over
95% of our ingredients in our dry dog and cat foods originate from
the U.S. And Canada. How did this happen to the Venison Formulas? From time to time we evaluate our formulas and look for ways to improve them. We recently looked at the Venison dry formulas and thought that adding another protein source would improve the formula. Unfortunately, we are being informed and believe that the rice protein concentrate used was contaminated with melamine. How did this happen to the Beef, Chicken & Lamb canned dog foods and the Ocean Fish canned cat food? Our canned food manufacturer, American Nutrition, from Ogden, Utah, informed us on the afternoon of April 26th, 2007 that they were recalling all canned food products made in their plant that contain rice protein concentrate. American Nutrition continued by telling us that they added this ingredient to 4 of our canned food products without our knowledge and consent. We have reviewed all of our other products and determined that they are free of rice protein concentrate and that all of our product labels are accurate. Did the recalled canned Beef, canned Chicken and canned Lamb formulas manufactured by American Nutrition test positive for melamine? Not to our knowledge. We conducted testing of samples of those products at an independent lab which did not reveal the presence of melamine in the amounts detectable by such tests. Notwithstanding the results of the lab that we used, the formulas listed above and the canned Venison formula manufactured by ANI were recalled as part of ANI’s recall of a number of the items that it manufactures for us and other companies. Did the Ocean Fish canned product from American Nutrition test positive for melamine? Not to our knowledge. We conducted testing of samples of canned Ocean Fish formula at an independent lab which did not reveal the presence of melamine in the amounts detectable by such tests. Notwithstanding the results of the lab that we used, the 6 oz and 3 oz ocean fish formulas listed above were manufactured by ANI and were recalled as part of ANI’s recall of a number of the items that it manufactures for us and other companies. Please note that the Venison and Green Pea canned formula is NOT involved in the recall. How can we trust your other foods? We
do NOT use rice protein concentrate in any other than those products
being recalled. Why don’t you make your own food? There
is virtually no company, large or small in the U.S. that makes 100%
of its own food because there are many expert companies that specialize
in contract manufacturing, and we work with two of the best. Why aren’t you using lot codes for the recall? Ignoring
lot numbers and date codes is the fastest way for us to get potentially
affected product off the shelves. How were you able to act so quickly relative to the Venison products? We acted so quickly because our Registered Veterinary Technician/ Customer Service Representative received six calls on April 12th (Thursday) and April 13th (Friday) all from dog families who had started using a “new” bag of our Venison & Brown Rice Formula Dry Dog Food. Because we never see a cluster of six phone calls about one of our products we decided Friday afternoon that there must be a problem with the newest batch of the dog formula even though we did not know what the problem was. We decided at that time to initiate testing to try to determine the problem, but at the same time, we decided to stop the further distribution of the Venison Dog and Venison Cat dry formulas after we received one call from a cat family on Friday. Calls were made to PetCo and our distributors to stop distribution of the food and to start contacting our retailers to pull the affected foods off the shelves, while we monitored calls over the weekend. How were you able to act so quickly relative to the additional canned food products? We acted so quickly because our canned food manufacturer, American Nutrition, from Ogden, Utah informed us on the afternoon of April 26th, 2007 that they were recalling all canned food products made in their plant that contain rice protein concentrate. American Nutrition continued by telling us that they added this ingredient to 4 of our canned food products without our knowledge and consent. Once we were informed of the recall, calls were made to PetCo and our distributors to stop distribution of the food and to start contacting our retailers to pull the affected foods off the shelves. What is melamine? Melamine
is a strong organic base with the chemical formula C3H6N6. How did melamine get into your food? We
don’t know. It appears that the rice protein concentrate used
was contaminated by an unknown source. This is the subject of an
ongoing FDA investigation. Venison
& Brown Rice Canned Dog Food: Venison
& Brown Rice Formula Dog Treats: Venison
& Brown Rice Formula Dry Dog Food: Venison
& Green Pea Dry Cat Food: Lamb
Formula Canned Dog Food: Beef
Formula Canned Dog Food: Chicken
Formula Canned Dog Food: Ocean
Fish Canned Cat Food: Are Rice, Rice Flour, Rice Bran and Brown Rice affected by the contaminated rice protein concentrate? NO. More Questions on Ingredients: How are your fish meal and salmon meal preserved? We use Naturox®, a natural preservative of mixed tocopherols (vitamin E).We do not use Ethoxyquin. BACK TO TOP |