“Plant-first” pet foods costs pet owners a lot more money.
In a recent post from PetFoodProcessing.com a new pet food brand was announced from Mars Petcare. “Mars Petcare on June 29 introduced the latest additions to its dog food portfolio: KARMA™ plant-first formulas. While both formulas include traditional pet food proteins, including white fish and chicken, both whole-grain sorghum and brewers rice appear before the animal-based proteins on the product labels.”
The pet food label even includes the marketing pitch of plant-first…
“Plant-first” is described by PetFoodProcessing.com as:
“The formulas are designed to primarily incorporate whole grains and plant-based ingredients, combined with lean animal proteins and healthy fats, to create a nutritionally balanced and environmentally conscious diet for dogs.”
Is this dog food really different? Mars is advertising the Karma Plant First Dog Food as being unique, something different for pet owners that want to provide their pets with more plant-based nutrition. However, simply put, plant-first simply means ingredients are re-arranged listing grains before animal protein ingredients.
Pet food regulations require pet food ingredients to be listed on labels by pre-cooking weight – heaviest to lightest. But…pet owners are forced to trust ingredient listings are accurate because regulatory authorities do NOT validate pet food recipes to assure ingredient weights (as they are listed on labels). In fact, some manufacturers have REFUSED to disclose this information even to FDA.
From documents released by FDA regarding Beneful Dog Food, we know that after receiving numerous consumer complaints regarding Beneful the FDA performed inspections at multiple Purina pet food plants. Quoting the FDA report “Per a refusal from Nestle Purina Corporate Headquarters, the manufacturing facility was unable to provide the actual content or weights of individual ingredients that went into each batch of the implicated lots associated with previously reported consumer complaints.”
We can safely assume that other manufacturers refuse to provide FDA the weights of individual ingredients too (validating the ingredient list).
The listed ingredients of Karma Plant First Recipe With Chicken:
The first eight ingredients (all ingredients listed before flavor additive) of the Karma Plant First Recipe with Chicken are:
“Whole Grain Sorghum, Brewers Rice, Chicken Meal, Chicken Fat (preserved with mixed tocopherols), Chicken, Dehydrated Alfalfa Meal, Split Peas, Whole Flaxseed.”
The cost for a 4 pound bag of this kibble is $19.99 ($5.00 per pound).
Another Mars Petcare brand – Nutro Natural Choice Adult Chicken & Brown Rice Recipe – has VERY similar first eight ingredients. Underlined ingredients match the Karma Plant First dog food:
“Chicken, Brewers Rice, Chicken Meal, Whole Grain Brown Rice, Whole Grain Barley, Whole Grain Sorghum, Chicken Fat (preserved with Mixed Tocopherols), Rice Bran.”
Five of the first eight ingredients in both dog foods are identical. But, the cost for the Nutro dog food, a non-“plant-first” pet food is significantly less. A 5 pound bag – is $12.94 ($2.58 per pound).
What does “plant-first” cost pet owners? Almost double.
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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scrappyrat
July 7, 2021 at 2:55 pm
If they’re going to do this, they need to do it right with quality plant-based protein sources. Sorghum? Really?
Gary Lynch
July 7, 2021 at 2:58 pm
Pet Food Marketing. The reality is the the US pet food market is so large and diverse, pet food manufacturers can “create a good story” to appeal to a segment of the overall market. And charge that market a premium. Is that market large enough to spend 2X the cost for an up-market named plant first pet food with a new holistic storyline? We will see.
As is pointed out, looking at the ingredient listing on a pet food only tells a partial story as to the ingredient composition of a pet food. But still important information with taking in context to the nutrient levels. A pet food nutritionist will get more out of this information than the typical consumer.
I do need to point out an error in the Beneful example:; Nestle refused to release the formulation information (ingredient weights). It’s not that they know it. You can absolutely bet they they have computer batch records for every component that goes into every batch of pet food. As will any pet food manufacturer following FSMA and GMPs.
Concerned
July 7, 2021 at 8:38 pm
Check the DNA pet food study that Susan posted
https://truthaboutpetfood.com/two-new-studies-emphasize-pet-food-regulation-failures/
or even this one
https://truthaboutpetfood.com/__trashed-5/
T Allen
July 7, 2021 at 3:24 pm
ROFL!!! OMG… Wow, there’s a sucker born every minute. The good news is we are slowly but surely converting them to proper diets for our pets. Pets where arsenic laden rice and roundup contaminated sorghum are the first ingredients before the toxic garbage they call “protein”. You got to give the the marketing dept an A+ for effort though. “Karma”? LOL!!!
Abigail Hollister
July 7, 2021 at 4:43 pm
Disgusting.
Amanda
July 7, 2021 at 5:47 pm
Hopefully a good percentage of people know that dogs and cats (cats especially) need a meat- based diet. Plants should be a minimal percentage of their diet.
Pacificsun
July 7, 2021 at 6:37 pm
Please stay safe during the High Winds storm that just rocked through your area!
Susan Thixton
July 7, 2021 at 7:07 pm
Thank you! We are fine. Storm has passed us now.
Sherri
July 7, 2021 at 9:10 pm
So less meat, more plant proteins, is this not a recipe for DCM? Seems like it to me. I think we’ve already seen from recent experience that using less meat and instead adding a lot of beans and legumes and other plant proteins has very undesirable consequences. I don’t feed any sort of commercial pet feed so not an issue for me but there’s a lot of suckers out there who will jump on this.
Elinor
July 8, 2021 at 8:29 am
At first it would appear that this article at this link (https://behind-the-news.com/the-ba-cartel-part-2-of-a-3-part-series/) would appear to be unrelated to pet food(s), but indeed it is related. Article is a good learning experience of who controls all food (whether human or animal).