Pet Food Ingredients

Natura’s Response to Pledge

Natura Pet Foods (Innova, California Naturals, Evo, Karma, Health Wise, and Mother Nature) recently contacted me; I took the opportunity to ask them personally to participate in our Pledge to Quality and Origin campaign. This was their response…

Susan Thixton

Published

July 9, 2012

Tammy Barker, Natura Pet Products Community Manager, recently contacted me regarding TruthaboutPetFood.com’s list of ‘Who Makes What in Pet Food’. She sort of asked that Natura be listed separately from P&G because the Natura foods “have continued since the acquisition, to manufacture our dog, cat and ferret kibble in our own plant.” I jumped on the communication opportunity to ask Natura to provide us with their Pledge to Quality and Origin (though I had previously sent the request to Natura through their ‘Contact Us’ information on their website – with no response). This is what I was told to my request for their Pledge…

“As you can imagine with the many offerings we have across all of our brands that we offer under Natura; Innova, EVO, California Natural, Healthwise, Mother Nature and Karma, building the www.seebyondthebag.com site had a lot of work go in to making sure we had all the data loaded. This is the one data source best to gather all of the information, rather than multiple places so when updates are made, we have a single place to make them, rather than a document that can become aged and inaccurate over time. I hope you can appreciate this.”

Here’s what the Pledge asks and here is a snippet of what ‘See Beyond the Bag’ provides – you decide if you feel they are comparable…

The Pledge asks for Country of Origin of all ingredients including supplements.
‘See Beyond the Bag’ does not appear to provide Country of Origin of supplements such as vitamins and minerals.

The Pledge asks if each ingredient is USDA Inspected and Approved plus provides opportunity for Grade of ingredient information if applicable.
‘See Beyond the Bag’ does not appear to provide USDA Inspected and Approved information or Grade information. As example, for sourcing information of the ingredient turkey in Innova Adult Dry Dog Food – small bites, the See Beyond the Bag website provides a map of U.S. states this ingredient is sourced from. For further information the site instructs to ‘Click on the Map to Learn More About This Ingredient’. With turkey, the site provides “Turkey is an excellent source of highly digestible protein. Fun Facts: At maturity, an average turkey will have 3,500 feathers. The world’s heaviest turkey weighed a whopping 86 pounds.”

The Pledge asks for the signature of a CEO or President of the company as to the accuracy of the information provided.
‘See Beyond the Bag’ does not appear to provide any promise or word via signature of an officer of the company.

C’mon Natura…go one step further and provide your customers your Pledge. Your ‘See Beyond the Bag’ campaign is a good start. Don’t your customers deserve all of the quality and country of origin information? If you are currently a customer of Natura, please ask them to provide their Pledge.

Every pet owner deserves to have the word of their pet food manufacturer – the signed pledge of a CEO or President – to the quality and country of origin of all ingredients of a pet food. With FDA Compliance Policies that allow hugely inferior wastes into pet food, the reality is – no Pledge could mean your choice of pet food contains recycled waste. Please keep asking them for their Pledge!

Wishing you and your pet(s) the best,

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

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