Just when you think something good happened, you realize that it wasn’t so good after all.
The Good News
On May 6, 2014 Purina filed a lawsuit against pet food rival Blue Buffalo for false and misleading advertising. A few days later (May 14, 2014) Blue Buffalo counter sued Purina with a false and misleading advertising lawsuit. What began in May of 2014 – turned into multiple lawsuits including a consumer class action lawsuit that resulted in a $32 million dollar settlement (the largest pet food consumer settlement in history). Further, the lawsuit filed by Purina has recently led to criminal charges with more than $7 million dollars in fines and penalties.
On Thursday, October 11, 2018 the United States Attorney’s Office Western District of Missouri issued a press release titled “Two Companies Ordered to Pay More Than $7 Million for Adulterated and Misbranded Pet Food Ingredients”. The release bragged “Two companies were sentenced in federal court today relating to their introduction of adulterated and misbranded pet food ingredients into interstate commerce.”
Wilbur-Ellis Company was sentenced by U.S. Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker to three years of probation and ordered to pay $4,549,682 in restitution, criminal forfeiture in the form of a money judgment in the amount of $964,442, and a fine of $1,000. Diversified Ingredients was sentenced to three years of probation and ordered to pay $1.5 million in restitution, criminal forfeiture in the form of a money judgment in an amount of $75,000, and a fine of $2,000.
This is good news. It is more than appropriate for pet food ingredient manufacturers to be held accountable for shipping misbranded pet food ingredients to pet food manufacturers.
Within the same United States Attorney’s Office press release it stated:
On April 25, 2018, Wilbur-Ellis Company pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor count of introducing adulterated food into interstate commerce. On July 10, 2018, Diversified Ingredients pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor count of introducing adulterated food into interstate commerce and one misdemeanor count of introducing misbranded food into interstate commerce. In connection with the guilty pleas, the court was advised that pet food ingredients shipped from a Wilbur-Ellis facility in Rosser, Texas – specifically, chicken meal and turkey meal – were adulterated and misbranded through the use of cheaper substitute ingredients, such as feather meal and feed grade chicken bone by-product meal, and adulterated and misbranded by omitting premium ingredients, such as turkey meal, from products identified as turkey meal. The adulterated pet food ingredients did not pose a threat to the health or safety of any animal.
This statement in the above quote this section“specifically, chicken meal and turkey meal – were adulterated and misbranded through the use of cheaper substitute ingredients, such as feather meal and feed grade chicken bone by-product meal” – gives pet owners a clue to what chicken by-product meal is most commonly made from — “chicken bone”. Certainly this was a mistake by the author of the press release (the official name of the ingredient is without the word bone – chicken by-product meal), BUT it certainly gives us a clue to what their investigation found common to chicken by-product meal.
The Bad News
The ONLY reason these significant financial penalties and criminal charges were placed on these pet food ingredient manufacturers is because the feather meal and feed grade chicken bone by-product meal were labeled as chicken meal and turkey meal. Pet food ingredients that are not labeled properly are termed ‘misbranded’ per federal law, misbranded pet foods are ‘adulterated’ per federal law.
These pet food ingredient companies WERE NOT charged and penalized because it is illegal to feed pets feathers and bones (waste of human food industry)…it is ONLY because they did not disclose feathers and bones were in the ingredients.
This whole thing between Purina and Blue Buffalo that started back in 2014 was all about the legal definitions of pet food ingredients. The legal definition of chicken meal requires specific things, the legal definition of chicken by-product meal requires different specific things. The legal definitions of ingredients were not abided by, thus making the pet foods misbranded and adulterated. But…in all of these lawsuits, in all of these investigations – no one bothered to recognize that pet food consumers have NO public access to the very pet food ingredient definitions that many million dollar lawsuits were based on.
Pet food ingredient definitions are owned and copyright protected by the private corporation AAFCO – Association of American Feed Control Officials. AAFCO charges $118.00 per year for anyone to view legal definitions of pet food ingredients.
This entire ingredient definition fiasco that started with a lawsuit from Purina against Blue Buffalo in 2014 was the perfect opportunity to change this serious pet owner denial of Freedom of Information rights. But…
Purina didn’t bother to petition the courts to provide pet owners public access to pet food ingredient definitions, neither did Blue Buffalo. And neither did any federal agency or federal employee that investigated this situation. With just the investigation of the Wilbur Ellis and Diversified Ingredients, this is all of the government agencies that spent tax payer money to investigate the ingredients that did not match their legal definition: “This case is being investigated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Office of Criminal Investigations, the FBI and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Charles Birmingham, Gil Sison, and Kyle Bateman, Special Attorneys to the United States Attorney General, are prosecuting the case on behalf of the government.”
All of these federal agencies and federal employees involved, all of the pet food manufacturers involved, and all of the pet food ingredient manufacturers involved…and not one thought it was unjust for pet owners to be denied public access to pet food ingredient definitions. Not one.
One more Bad News: Not one of these federal agencies and federal employees involved in this investigation bothered to alert pet owners that other pet food manufacturers bought mislabeled chicken meal and sold mislabeled pet food to pet owners. Purina – who started this whole situation with their lawsuit against Blue Buffalo admitted in court documents they too purchased mislabeled chicken meal. “After years of concealment, Nestlé Purina’s Vice President of Purchasing has admitted under oath that his company procured and used the same Wilbur-Ellis “chicken meal” that Blue Buffalo purchased—and, thus, that Nestlé Purina’s own products were mislabeled for the same reason that Blue Buffalo’s were.” Source: https://truthaboutpetfood.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/BluePurinalawsuitupdate.pdf, page 7, 1st paragraph.
But Purina didn’t recall their pet foods as Blue Buffalo was forced to. Regulatory authorities just ignored Purina’s misbranded and adulterated products. And regulatory authorities ignored all the other pet food manufacturer that purchased misbranded ingredients from Wilbur Ellis or Diversified Ingredients.
What are all of these lawsuits for? Was it just name calling/finger pointing and federal agencies trying to show they can do at least one thing right? Is pet food any safer because of these lawsuits?
Would you buy a pet food with ingredients such as: feathers, condemned chicken, waste of human food processing chicken bone? Of course you wouldn’t. Which is exactly why ingredient definitions have pleasant terms like “by-products” and why consumers are denied public access to pet food ingredient definitions AND the ingredient defining process.
When are authorities going to realize pet owners are being denied Freedom of Information rights with no public access to legal definitions of pet food ingredients?
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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Dianne & Pets
October 13, 2018 at 2:39 pm
I think what is really amounts to is that Purina was losing market share to Blue Buffalo and they looked for a way to hurt them. Maybe they started with what they were doing wrong and checked to see if Blue Buffalo was doing the same.
Stephanie
October 13, 2018 at 2:45 pm
“AAFCO charges $118.00 per year for anyone to view legal definitions of pet food ingredients.”
Ridiculous. Even more so that it is a private company. Yeah, no conflict of interest there…
barbara m
October 13, 2018 at 6:41 pm
You can buy an older copy on eBay. Doesn’t matter whether it is a 2018 copy. You can also get it from your local library. You have to order it as an Inter-library loan.
Susan Thixton
October 13, 2018 at 7:30 pm
It does matter if the book is older – new definitions are added or edited each year.
Denise
October 13, 2018 at 3:38 pm
Unless you make the pet food yourself, you really don’t know what ingredients these companies are putting in the pet food. That holds true for the most expensive to the least expensive dog foods.
Mao
October 19, 2018 at 11:49 am
Amen to that Denise. This is exactly why my wife and I started making/cooking our dogs meals. They’re lives are more than worth the effort and expense. Like so many other legal problems the courts seem much too indifferent or slow to punish the companies violating to help us pet owners. Which would force this industry to do what’s right. Do we have to look forward to 10, 15, or 20 years for resolve? I can’t wait and neither can my precious family, my dogs.
Denise
October 20, 2018 at 7:26 am
Absolutely Mao, I have 5 rescue dogs. I can’t afford a trip to the vet because I picked the wrong dog food that has been or should’ve been recalled. The companies make the outside packaging the food look very appetizing with beautiful wolves running in the snow, pictures of fresh chicken, veggies and fruit..etc… but in reality it’s what’s inside the bag is what matters most.
Robin
October 14, 2018 at 6:10 am
How did they come up with such a ridiculous arbitrary number $118 I want that explanation
Tracey Shrout
October 15, 2018 at 7:22 am
Back in 2008, when I first started making my own food, the publication was $100. I was forced to purchased the book so I’d know the rules of labeling and requirements. Price keeps increasing.
Peter
October 14, 2018 at 8:09 am
A 2012 study found caffeine, pharmaceuticals (including acetaminophen and fluoxetine) and residues of fluoroquinolones: broad-spectrum antibiotics banned for use in poultry production by the FDA in 2005. Despite that antimicrobials used in poultry production have the potential to bio-accumulate in poultry feathers as a “(toxicity) pathway,” feather meal itself is not directly tested as part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service and National Residue Monitoring Program(s).
Imagine… there are companies that as a business, build machines to grind poultry feathers as a pet food ingredient.
Poultry feathers would end up in a landfill, absent intervention of the rendering business. They are highly indigestible… and have to be “processed”: ground and hydrolyzed; then, a “palatant” is added to give the mix a better taste.
As to the question, “would you buy…?” I don’t believe consumers would ever consider any of this a possibility. They expect that government regulates the industry and “protects” them and their families. And after all, the label on the can doesn’t say “waste product” or “feather meal” or whatever, does it?
Lisa P
October 14, 2018 at 7:54 pm
All that money ….. and where does it go? Do the families of the beloved pets they lost ever see any of it? The ones who spent hard earned money to feed their pets what they believed to be food food for their pets. I would really like to know where all those millions of dollars in judgements & fines get paid to.
Tracey Shrout
October 15, 2018 at 7:17 am
Yes, WHERE does that money go?
Peter
October 16, 2018 at 7:40 am
An “old” quote, but one that certainly still resonates:
“What disturbs me is that people think The Food and Drug Administration is protecting them. It isn’t.
What the FDA is doing and what people think they are doing is as different as night and day.” (Dr. Herbert Ley, Jr. [Former Commissioner, US FDA], Interview: The New York Times, January 1970.
Susan’s explanation is well reasoned. There are parallel but different issues of consumer-based and criminal cases that were pursued. But in the end, consumers couldn’t get reasonable answers to how pet food ingredients are defined even if they wanted to.
“Fines” and “restitution” (or, for example, “compensatory damages”) are different things. Typically, the “lead plaintiff” gets an agreed-upon amount which may only amount to a few thousand dollars. The remaining members of the “class” admitted by the court would “divide” the rest after attorneys fees and costs were deducted. Often, this means that the class members (the injured consumers: who may number in the thousands, and must be “qualified”) get pittance, often in the form of “coupons” for future purchase of the very product (in this case: food) that they probably wouldn’t want to buy again, anyway.
You would be correct in your assumption that the bulk of the “award” would go to the attorneys. But that is what motivates the availability of legal counsel, and absent that potential, it isn’t likely a case could be filed in the first place, because the lead plaintiff(s) generally wouldn’t be able to afford high-priced counsel.
One hopes that the benefit is still there… in the form of “punishment” through the exposure of “bad publicity.”
The problem is that consumers have short memories, and the negative effect is not as long as we would hope. Manufacturers simply build in the cost of litigation into their business model as a cost of business. There doesn’t seem to be any lasting damage to BB, and Susan’s point about Purina using the same adulterated ingredients is almost “too complicated” for the regular press to explain to ordinary consumers.
Mao
October 19, 2018 at 12:06 pm
A sad wow. It seems the only recourse pet owners are left with may be to boycott the industry. Which leaves many of us with the expense and inconvenience of making their food. Thanks for the info’.
Linda James
October 15, 2018 at 11:54 pm
I was feeding my dog the IAMS dog food. He suddenly died after eating from a new bag of the IAMS Proactive Health Mini Chunks. Afterwards, I had the dog food tested. One thing they found in the dog food was feathers!!! FEATHERS!!! No where in the list of ingredients does it say anything about feathers!!! Susan do you think the IAMS company purchased mislabeled chicken meal? Do NOT feed your dog IAMS dog food. So many people’s dogs are still getting so sick from eating this food with some dogs still dying like mine did. And still no recall.
Susan Thixton
October 16, 2018 at 8:00 am
First, I am so, so sorry for your loss. I’m sure you are devastated.
The ingredient chicken by-product meal in Iams can contain feathers. And you would have never known because you are denied public access to pet food ingredient definitions. The system is set up to keep you and every pet owner in the dark.