A Warning Letter discloses that Hill’s Pet Food received a vitamin premix with 2900% higher levels of vitamin D (than what was claimed on the product label). Even though both the premix supplier and Hill’s failed to test for safety concerns, FDA only issued a warning to the ingredient supplier. FDA issued NO warning to Hill’s.
In October 2019, the FDA issued a Warning Letter to vitamin premix supplier DSM Nutritional Products. The FDA warning disclosed that the premix supplied to Hill’s Pet Food included vitamin D at 2903% above what it should have been.
“Specifically, on January 22, 2019, your firm received a complaint from your customer of elevated levels of vitamin D3 in their product. As a result, your firm obtained analytical results of your facility’s retained samples of suspected product and compared these levels to the claimed amount. These analytical results revealed two (2) batches of vitamin premix that were determined to be manufactured on August 16, 2018 and contained levels of vitamin D3 in excess of the amount intended:
• 2217 Canned Canine PMX; Product Code: NP15268025; Batch: 9100058130 contained vitamin D levels at 2903% of the amount claimed.
• 2217 Canned Canine PMX; Product Code; NP15268025, Batch: 9100058131 at 307% of the amount claimed.”
Similar to pet food labels, vitamin and/or mineral premixes are required to include ingredients and a guaranteed percentage of each ingredient included. As example, here is a sample label of a mineral premix:
The DSM Nutritional Products vitamin premix label would have been similar, stating a “guarantee” of each vitamin included and a guaranteed percentage. The FDA Warning Letter explains the “guarantee” stated on the DSM vitamin premix shipped to Hill’s Pet Food was 2903% higher than the label claimed.
FDA asserted their regulatory authority with DSM Nutritional Products by issuing a Warning Letter to the premix ingredient supplier for failing to have proper procedures in place to prevent such a deadly error in manufacturing. The FDA Warning Letter to DSM stated:
“Your firm did not sufficiently assess the probability that a vitamin D toxicity hazard will occur in the absence of a preventive control.”
But…FDA issued no Warning Letter to Hill’s for the VERY SAME error.
Hill’s Pet Food failed in a similar manner as DSM Nutritional Products. Hill’s failed to have proper procedures in place to prevent a toxic ingredient from being included in a pet food. Per a lawsuit against Hill’s – the pet food manufacturer claimed to “conduct final safety checks daily on every Hill’s pet food product to help ensure the safety of your pet’s food” on their website. But clearly Hill’s did NOT conduct those promised safety checks of vitamin premix. It was the very same failure as DSM; “did not sufficiently assess the probability that a vitamin D toxicity hazard will occur in the absence of a preventive control.”
So…why didn’t FDA issue a similar Warning Letter to Hill’s Pet Food? Hill’s failed in the same manner as DSM, but FDA simply ignored the Hill’s Pet Food failure. Is FDA protecting their friends in pet food again?
Wishing you and your pet(s) the best,
Susan Thixton
Pet Food Safety Advocate
Author Buyer Beware, Co-Author Dinner PAWsible
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Nancy Lee Westrell
November 18, 2019 at 12:44 pm
Is there any chance this ingredient supplier provides product to other petfeed manufacturers, Susan?
Susan Thixton
November 18, 2019 at 12:48 pm
I would assume they (DSM) supply to numerous other pet feed manufacturers.
Petra Cox
November 18, 2019 at 12:57 pm
It would be interesting to know what other pet food companies DSM supplies to. Very scary!
Lynnfacebook
November 19, 2019 at 12:04 am
A while back there was a documentary on Netflix called Pet Fooled. Very interesting. All about pet food industry and about the company’s. If I remember correctly, it said there were only 5. Maybe you can find it on YouTube if it is no longer available on Netflix.
Reader
November 18, 2019 at 2:50 pm
The point being that if Hills didn’t exercise quality control over such an obvious addition (necessity) to the feed, then what else have they been missing along the way.
Thus you would want Hills to be sanctioned as well as the supplier!
Zac Chernik
November 18, 2019 at 5:12 pm
https://www.hillspet.com/about-us/quality-and-safety
Read Hill’s Pet Nutrition’s commitment to pet food quality and manufacturing safety. … More than 220 veterinarians, food scientists, technicians and Ph.D. … We only accept ingredients from suppliers whose facilities meet stringent quality … Additionally, all finished products are physically inspected and tested for key nutrients
I guess Hills should change their marketing info……..to “why waste money on testing”
also Hills is HACCP
http://www.foodhaccp.com/1news/081512b.html
https://www.petfoodindustry.com/articles/2985-petfood-safety-key-decisions-for-your-haccp-program
[“HACCP is useless and even hazardous when carried out in a plant with poor infrastructure. “, “In the case of complete pet diets, nutritional inadequacy must always be a hazard to consider.”, “Poor verification is probably the number one reason for major food safety incidents in HACCP-certified plants.”]
Hazard analysis and critical control points, or HACCP, is a regulatory requirement for many industries and is the basis for managing food safety in a variety of international management systems, such as ISO 22000, the British Retail Consortium and Safe Quality Foods Institute. There is no argument as to the effectiveness of HACCP when it is applied properly. However, poor implementation or abuse of the system can be devastating. Indeed, many widely publicized food safety incidents have been caused by products originating from HACCP-certified plants.
To use HACCP properly, you need to understand its limitations. HACCP is no more than a decision-making tool. As long as it is regarded as the ultimate food safety certification scheme, it will never serve its real purpose: to provide professionals with a systematic method for making sound product safety decisions.
Scot and Coosa
November 18, 2019 at 8:56 pm
I have read here the effects of copper sulfate in dog Feed and that Is what made me stop buying TOTW kibble and start making Dr Judy Morgans Pup Loaf. And most of the other vitamins/minerals are oxides….🤮
vcs
November 19, 2019 at 7:56 am
But the Hill’s apologists on some of the other Facebook will tell you that you can feed Hill’s with “complete confidence”…after all, they have all kinds of Quality Control measures in place and they are “WSAVA compliant”. WSAVA compliance apparently isn’t worth the paper its written on. WSAVA and the Big Industry pet food companies are nothing more than collusion rackets designed to choke off the smaller competitors. For all its supposed “WSAVA Compliance”, Hill’s certainly isn’t doing very well in he PR department lately…..Class action lawsuits for the toxic levels of vitamin D that was sllowed to slip out the door, class action lawsuit against Hill’s alleging fraud that as found to “have merit” by an appellate court, etc.
Petra Cox
November 19, 2019 at 11:30 am
Very sad! I have a Main Coon kitty and I keep thinking that I need to prepare his food myself. As far as I am concerned, Hill’s is crossed off of my list. So is Blue Buffalo! Because of Susan Thixton and this web site, I have come to realize the Blue Buffalo is horrible. And that the FDA says that to list that there is chicken in the pet food only has to have scales from the feet. Not for my baby! Another word to the wise if I may, I have read that feeding liver to our pets is not good. They are eating all of the hormones and things that the cow was fed as the liver is a filter. We have a store called Hollywood Feed in Okla City and they sell clean pet food. Fortunately more and more of these stores are popping up now.
Nancy Lee Westrell
November 19, 2019 at 1:07 pm
I’ve been buying my pet’s food from a small, independent pet store for a long time now. Unlike groceries or chain pet stores, they follow the news. The store I shop at discontinues a brand if it is bought out by a big company that has a history of bad practices
.
Tina
November 23, 2019 at 9:51 pm
I have some information regarding the excess vitamin D that was put in dog premix packages for Hill’s. A rep at DSM named Hugh Welsh wrote this to me via email after I submitted a question via DSM’s online contact form & made a few calls to some of DSM’s US offices:
“DSM made a Lot/Two Batches of premix for Hills Pet Nutrition on August 16, 2018 at our Fort Worth, Texas plant into which an operator mistakenly put too Vitamin D instead of Vitamin E. These two batches are the only batches that had too much Vitamin D and these batches were only shipped to Hills Pet Nutrition in Topeka, Kansas. No other DSM products or customers were in any way impacted by this one mistake. The Fort Worth plant’s Food Safety Plan has been updated and positive release controls such as daily inventory management have been put in place so that a mistake of this nature cannot happen again.”
Renee Wright
February 4, 2020 at 11:49 am
Were rx Hill’s Science Diet part of that food?
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