Who Makes What in Pet Food

Not necessarily, as there are many different mfg’s for a single brand – depending on whether its dry or can (& sometimes the type/ flavor or grain free or not) of dry or can. Scan thru & you’ll see some brands do indeed have several mfg’s – Blue for one, Canidae, Evangers etc

Check out the Weruva site. they process their own food in thailand.

I would say Wellness is great- Wellness Pet Food is non-gmo. I wouldn’t trust anything from Nestle, Del Monte, Colgate Palmolive, Mars, or Procter & Gamble.

Fromm does indeed co-pack. They manufacture Halo dry. My husband works for Halo distributing and they get trucks in from Fromm with the dry on it. Fromm is also known as All Pet and they co-pack for more than one company. They are under contract to not tell you that they do, in fact co-pack. Halo is also manufactured by HyTek Foods in Georgia, Menu Foods (Canned – they used to use Vietti), Performance Pet (Canned) and treats come from Stella & Chewys, and a few other places. Merrick also co-packs for different brands. The person above missed a few places. I have no problem telling you who I am because I can’t get in trouble for saying LOL. Halo is stored and distributed out of TN and I can tell you who packs what if you want to know…

One more thing. The woman who invented Halo Spot’s Stew told me in an email that the reason she cut ties with them is because they reformulated the food and she didn’t like what was going into it because it didn’t fit in with her wishes for the product.

What do you want to know about it exactly? Per their website directly, here are the specs for the food/formula you asked about:

Ingredients:
Chicken Meal, Brown Rice, White Rice, Rice Bran, Peas, Chicken Fat (Preserved with Mixed Tocopherols), Dried Beet Pulp, Flaxseed, Dried Egg Product, Apples, Blueberries, Cranberries, Carrots, Spinach, Salt, Potassium Chloride, Choline Chloride, DL-Methionine, L-Lysine, Taurine, Yucca Schidigera Extract, L-Carnitine, Beta-Carotene, Vitamin A Supplement, Vitamin D3 Supplement, Vitamin E Supplement, Zinc Sulfate, L-Ascorbyl-2-Polyphosphate (Source of Vitamin C), Ferrous Sulfate, Niacin, Calcium Pantothenate, Riboflavin Supplement, Copper Sulfate, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Thiamine Mononitrate, Manganese Sulfate, Zinc Proteinate, Manganese Proteinate, Copper Proteinate, Calcium Iodate, Cobalt Carbonate, Folic Acid, Sodium Selenite, Biotin, Vitamin B12 Supplement.

Guaranteed Analysis
Crude Protein, minimum 26.00%
Crude Fat, minimum 15.00%
Crude Fiber, maximum 5.00%
Moisture, maximum 10.00%
Vitamin E, minimum 100 IU/kg
Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C), minimum 35 mg/kg*
L-Carnitine, minimum 15 mg/kg*
Omega-6 Fatty Acids, minimum 3.40%*
Omega-3 Fatty Acids, minimum 0.65%*
* Not recognized as an essential nutrient by the AAFCO Dog Food Nutrient Profiles.
Calorie Content:
Metabolizable Energy (calculated) 3,570 kcal/kg : 365 kcal/cup
Carbohydrates: 46.5%

— I am totally shocked that they’re even putting the carbohydrate % on their website like that – most pet food manufacturers, unless the carb percentage is really good (meaning, it’s really low), they try to avoid saying what it is, because… odds are, they know that carbs are actually not all that good, or necessary for dogs and cats, and thus stating how insanely high their carb percent is would only deter people from buying their products. It’s interesting to me that this company states the carbs there, even though the 46.5% is really, really high (but is not that much different from most other brands of dog food out there that claim to be great, but really aren’t). —

Obviously everyone has their own opinions on the multitude of brands of pet food out there, everyone has different experiences with them and different views on everything, so my opinion of this food may not match up with someone else’s, but this is how I feel about this food, based on what I’m seeing on their site (and my opinion is with the mindset of, “Would I feed this food to my own dog?” because I never give someone else advice or input that I wouldn’t give or use for myself, for my own pets):

*** The ingredient list is nothing impressive, really. If I had to decide whether or not to feed this to my dog, based on the ingredient list, I would say no, for a few reasons. One, I don’t like that there are no whole meat proteins in there. Sure, the whole meat source has water and whatnot, which increases the weight of the ingredient, but as long as I see other meat sources on the list too, then that’s okay. Moisture isn’t a bad thing, so it shouldn’t be seen as such, provided other ingredients complement this meat ingredient. Ideally, since the formula doesn’t appear to be geared for any sort of ‘limited ingredient’ or ‘sensitive stomach/skin’ sort of thing, I’m disappointed that the ONLY meat source is chicken. I hate seeing chicken on food labels nowadays. It’s everywhere. I can’t even count how many people I’ve helped over the years, that I recommended them switching their dogs to a completely chicken-free diet, and then having them come back to me a few months later, insanely happy and appreciative that I gave them that advice, that their dog’s issues completely disappeared once they removed chicken from their diet. I try to avoid chicken in my dog’s diet as well, just because it’s already in most things – treats, foods, it’s a common human food item that’s given to dogs, etc – so why add insult to injury and have it in her dog food as well? So to avoid sensitivity issues now, or later in life, I avoid it in her food. Second big issue: What’s with all the damn rice? Geez, I feel like I’m looking at the ingredient list for something at Panda Express… Lol. Seeing only one meat protein ingredient (chicken meal) and then multiple rice and grain ingredients following it, tells me that they are trying to substitute the right protein sources for dogs (meat) with less adequate grain proteins, which don’t contain all of the amino acids that our dogs need to stay healthy. So, if that chicken meal doesn’t provide enough of those amino acids, and the grain proteins aren’t providing those amino acids at all (certain ones, I mean)…then your dog will be severely lacking in something that they most definitely need to thrive and be healthy. Lastly, I make a huge attempt at avoiding foods that use these really crappy, cheap, poorly regulated, probably China-made pre-mix of vitamins and minerals. I prefer seeing foods that get those vitamins and minerals from actual foods, actual ingredients…. I don’t want to see a laundry list of chemical-looking names, or hard to pronounce or understand ingredients. Plus, pet food manufacturers don’t see these vitamins and minerals as “ingredients”, so when they say their food is “all natural” or that their ingredients are sourced from the USA or whatever ONLY….They don’t mean the vitamin and mineral pre-mixes that you see at the end of the ingredient list….because they’re not actually ‘ingredients’.

The protein percentage is not nearly high enough for what dogs should be getting. Ideally, I would say you want to see at least 30% and up, but I try to keep my dog’s protein % around 35% – 38%. Instead of having such a high carb %, I would like to see a higher percentage of fat. Dogs use fat for energy, for various bodily processes, etc… They use fat in a much more necessary way than we do, and I feel that that’s one area where pet food manufacturers profit off of our mentality that our pet’s are basically the same as the human members of our families, or profit off us anthropomorphising our pets so much. We think that because we need to cut down on fats to lose weight, or to eat healthier, that our pets do too, and that is absolutely NOT the case at all. If you want your pet to be healthier, cut down on the carbs, because carbs are far less useable to a dog than protein and fat are.

Lastly….the ratio of Omega-6 and Omega-3 is a little high for me. I didn’t do the math on the percentages up there for those, but they look pretty steep. Ideally, you want to see a ratio of 1:2 (Omega-6 to Omega-3), but no higher than 1:4, because it’s the Omega-3 that is the most beneficial, whereas having higher levels of Omega-6 and not enough of the Omega-3 can actually backfire and cause inflammation (as opposed to being anti-inflammatory, as the omegas are often claimed to be) and cause other various issues that normally the Omega-3 would be helping to combat.

I hope that helps… It’s not all of what I think about the food, based on an initial look at the food and their website… but hopefully it’s enough to give you somewhere to start. 🙂 I feed my dog and two cats Orijen, and I’ve never been happier with what they eat. My dog finally doesn’t have any digestive issues, after battling them for 5+ years, and she actually loves and eats the Orijen, whereas before….she would stick her nose to the air at literally every other brand of food she’s ever been on. The ingredient list is ideal, their sourcing is amazing for those ingredients, and no pre-mixes of the vitamins and minerals – they all come from actual, whole foods and healthy sources. 🙂 It’s an awesome product… AND, your dog doesn’t have to eat nearly the amount of food when on Orijen, as they would of any other food. Lol. So, despite the sticker shock on the price, you see a huge difference in how long a bag of Orijen lasts you in comparison to other brands. Lol.

Hope that helps ya….Sorry for the novel of a reply. Haha.