SmartPak Joins Dog Food

newslineSmartPak Joins Dog Food SmartPak Joins Dog Food SmartPak Joins Dog Food

Adding to the ever-expanding pet food recall, SmartPak of Plymouth, Mass., recalled one of its dog food products, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced today.
 
The company said it was recalling a single production run of LiveSmart Weight Management Chicken and Brown Rice dog food because it contained rice protein concentrate supplied by Wilbur-Ellis.

Earlier in the week, the FDA said it found melamine, a chemical implicated in the death of 16 cats and dogs and potentially many more, in rice protein concentrate imported from China by San Francisco-based Wilbur-Ellis.

SmartPak, which sells directly to consumers through its website, said it had notified every pet owner by both phone and e-mail of its recall.

Less than 1,200 pounds of the food had left its facility, SmartPak said.
The company does not use rice protein concentrate in any of its other LiveSmart formulas, it said.

Of the five pet food manufacturers that received rice protein concentrate from Wilbur-Ellis, only one remains unidentified. Natural Balance, Royal Canin and Blue Buffalo all recalled pet food products related to the Chinese rice protein earlier this week. Today the FDA said that remaining company was testing its product for melamine contamination before issuing a recall. It declined to name the company at this time.

The FDA also said it has begun testing additional vegetable proteins being imported to the country for use in both pet and human food items. In addition to wheat gluten and rice protein concentrate, the FDA is now randomly testing corn gluten, corn meal, soy protein and rice bran both at the U.S. border and in domestic food manufacturing plants.

The government agency is also testing for all “melamine-related” products after finding additional industrial chemicals in the contaminated pet food, it said.

Earlier in the week, Stephen Sundlof, DVM, director of the FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine said the agency was investigating the possibility that the melamine was used to artificially increase the protein content of the rice protein concentrate and wheat gluten.

Some of the contaminated pet food was sold to hog farms – some of them sizable – in California, North Carolina, South Carolina, Utah, New York and possibly Ohio by less than 10 pet food manufacturers, Sundlof said today.

The companies did not know the food was contaminated at the time, he said.
It was also sold to a poultry farm in Missouri, another FDA official said.

Melamine was found in the urine of pigs on the Carolina farms and California, the FDA said, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture was working with state officials in the other areas to look into those pig farms, said David Elder, director of the Office of Enforcement in the FDA’s Office of Regulatory Affairs.

During a House of Representatives subcommittee hearing today, some committee members called for mandatory food recalls and greater oversight of the nation’s food industry, including pet food.

“Food safety has the potential to become a national security risk,” said U.S. Rep. Bart Stupak, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.
Diana DeGette, a democrat from Colorado called the pet food recall and the recent contamination of spinach and peanut butter symptoms of a systemic problem.

“These are not isolated situations,” she said. “We need a mandatory recall bill.”

She and other representatives called for increased FDA inspections of imports and food manufacturing plants.

“Inspections are going down as imports are going up,” DeGette noted.

Adding to the ever-expanding pet food recall, SmartPak of Plymouth, Mass., recalled one of its dog food products, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced today.Adding to the ever-expanding pet food recall, SmartPak of Plymouth, Mass., recalled one of its dog food products, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced today.04-24-2007