What Do the Last Five Years of Pet Food Recalls Tell Us?

Over the past five years – September 1, 2019 thru August 31, 2024 – we have seen 44 pet food recalls, involving almost 70 million pounds of pet food. Based on FDA Enforcement Report records, the breakdown of pounds of pet food recalled over the past five years is:

2019 (four months) – 387,062 lbs.
2020 – 59,764,699 lbs.
2021 – 8,656,987 lbs.
2022 – 136,175 lbs.
2023 – 756,848 lbs.
2024 (eight months) – 33,250 lbs.

In the first eight months of 2024, only 33,250 pounds of pet food have been recalled. This number is significantly low, considering the FDA received reports of more than 1,300 sick pets in January 2024 alone, with more than 100 pet deaths in the same one month time frame. We would expect large amounts of consumer submitted reports to be followed by a recall, but…

In looking at number of recall incidents (not pounds), kibble pet foods have had the most recalls over the past five years with 20. Raw pet food is second with 11 recalls.

But if we look at the total pounds of pet food recalled for each category, there is one significant style of pet food that was recalled the most – kibble. Over the past five years, more than 68 million pounds of kibble were recalled, compared to almost 700 thousand pounds of canned pet foods, 120 thousand pounds of refrigerated/frozen pet foods, and almost 46 thousand pounds of raw.

The top cause of pet food recalls over the past five years was aflatoxin contamination, involving more than 60 million pounds. This particular contaminant has been poisoning pet foods for decades AND is easily preventable with proper lab analysis. Raw ingredients should be consistently tested, finished pet foods with mycotoxin prone ingredients should be consistently tested. There is no excuse for these types of recalls to continue.

The second leading cause was pathogenic bacteria contamination with more than 8 million recalled. The third leading cause was excess/insufficient vitamins or minerals with almost 1 million pounds recalled.

The ONLY causes of recalls over the past five years were:

Aflatoxin
Pathogenic Bacteria
Insufficient/Excess Vitamins or Minerals
Foreign Object
Mislabeling
Oversize Fish Treat (no kidding)

This short list of causes of recalls should not be considered comforting to pet owners. Instead, what these few causes tell pet owners that these are the ONLY things regulatory looks for as potential contaminants in pet food.

And the top five pet food manufacturers of recalled pet foods over the past five years were:

Midwestern Pet Foods were by far the leading manufacturer of recalled pet foods, having both Salmonella and aflatoxin recalls in the past five years.

Sunshine Mills had both aflatoxin and Salmonella recalls as well.

TFP Nutrition had two Salmonella recalls.

Walmart pet foods – which are manufactured by unknown private label manufacturers – recalled multiple Special Kitty products for excess vitamins.

And Purina had two recalls; one for excess levels of Vitamin D, the other for mislabeling.

Wishing you and your pet(s) the best,

Susan Thixton
Pet Food Safety Advocate
Author Buyer Beware, Co-Author Dinner PAWsible
TruthaboutPetFood.com
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