Halo Pet Food’s Website Claims

Halo Pet Food recently introduced a new pet food, Halo Elevate. The press release announcement stated “We created Halo Elevate to boldly deliver best-in-class nutrition to pet parents. Our recipes are simple and transparent, proudly shown on the front of our packaging and directly address the top five pet health concerns.”

The Halo Elevate website makes several claims we requested explanation of. Below are images from the Healthy Grains Chicken Recipe Dry Dog Food website page:

We asked Halo for an explanation of what “Freeze dried raw coated” kibble is.

They responded: “We use freeze-dried coated chicken and salmon on our Elevate dry foods and use HPP (High pressure pasteurization).”

This response didn’t quite make sense. We assumed they meant that the kibble itself is coated in freeze dried chicken and salmon, but we wanted to know how this coating is applied.

We asked this follow up question: “In regards to the coating, am I correct that the coating is sprayed on after kibble manufacturing?”

Halo did not respond to the follow up question.

Another website claim of Halo Elevate pet food is in the image below. Our question to Halo was regarding their “Full Ingredient Traceability” claim.

We asked Halo: “Your website states full traceability of ingredients. Can you provide a link to that information?“

Halo provided this response: “On each of our Elevate dry food product pages, you can click “Every Ingredient & Nothing To Hide” and we list the purpose for using each ingredient and the sourcing locations for those respective ingredients. Here is a product example: https://halopets.com/products/halo%C2%AE-elevate-dog-grain-free-chicken-recipe-dry-food and a screen shot that shows every ingredient & nothing to hide:”

The information they provided (including the above image) isn’t quite ‘full ingredient traceability’. Halo provides ‘sourcing’ information, NOT country of origin information. And there is a big difference between the two.

Country of origin is where the ingredient originated. Country of sourcing could be the ingredient supplier location. As example: ABC Pet Food Ingredients is an ingredient supplier located in Florida. ABC Pet Food Ingredients imports chicken meal from China, selling to US pet food manufacturers. Any pet food manufacturer purchasing from ABC Pet Food Ingredients could truthfully claim an ingredient was ‘sourced’ in the US even though the country of origin was actually China. The question remains however, is sourcing information “full traceability“?

We sent the following to Halo as follow up: “And with your ingredient tracing – ingredients “sourced in the USA” is very different than country of origin. Where you source ingredients is not full traceability as your website claims. Any pet food can source from a US supplier, when ingredients originated outside the US. Will Halo correct their website removing the full traceability claim?“

Halo did not respond to the follow up question.

And the Halo website makes the claim of “world’s best ingredients – guaranteed“.

We asked Halo: “Your website for the same products also states “The world’s best ingredients. Guaranteed.” Can you explain how that determination was made?“

Halo responded: “We source premium ingredients that deliver guaranteed nutrients to the dog.”

To us, this response was very different than the claim. Their claim is ‘world’s best ingredients – guaranteed’ but their response was guaranteed nutrients. So, we sent the following question to Halo as follow up: “With your response to the website claim “The world’s best ingredients. Guaranteed.” – your explanation is very different than your website claim. You explained “We source premium ingredients that deliver guaranteed nutrients to the dog.” But your website claim is “world’s best ingredients – guaranteed”. Those are two different things. So again, can you provide information on how it was determined the dog food is guaranteed to include the world’s best ingredients?“

Halo did not respond to this follow up question either.

The FDA or State pet food authorities do not hold pet food companies accountable for their website claims. Unfortunately pet food manufacturers are free to claim almost anything on their websites – without worry of regulatory stopping them or verifying their claims.

Pet food consumers deserve to understand what all claims made on a pet food website mean. We will continue to ask Halo for more information and we will ask other manufacturers to explain their claims. When any replies are received (or when our questions are ignored), that information will be provided to pet owners.

Wishing you and your pet the best –

Susan Thixton
Pet Food Safety Advocate
TruthaboutPetFood.com
Association for Truth in Pet Food

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