By Judi McLeod
Thursday, July 5, 2007
Tainted toothpaste and other Chinese imports have pushed the poisoned pet food scandal off the radar.
While pet owners across the continent feed their pets the only food they trust--homemade--pet food manufacturers are scrambling to make a comeback and drive up their flagging profit lines.
Two companies from China that supplied pet food ingredients--intentionally--pre-contaminated their products with melamine and related substances, including cyanuric acid (a substance used in swimming pools in the U.S.) The Chinese firms, who originally had no problem finding takers among North American pet food manufacturers, wrote off the contaminated ingredients as "protein content".
Broken hearts over too many tiny pet graves ended the chapter for pet lovers.
But in a newly written chapter that should be titled, 'The Comeback of Pet Food Manufacturers who Kill', Public Relations is playing a big hand.
"The recall which affected as many as 11 manufacturers is a watershed moment (emphasis CFP's ) according to Menu Foods CEO Paul Henderson.
Menu Foods, North America's largest producer of private label wet pet food, which recalled more than 60 million containers of pet food during the contaminated pet food scandal, is in essence, a public trust company.
"Melamine, the substance suspected of infecting cats and dogs, and which resulted in the recall, is not used in pet food manufacturing," Henderson said at the company's annual general meeting on June 29. …"In late 2006, we--and at least four other pet food manufacturers--purchased wheat gluten from ChemNutra of Las Vegas, a company with extensive experience in sourcing pet food ingredients from China. We had used ChemNutra for other products and, in this case, on our behalf, ChemNutra acquired wheat gluten from Xuzhou Anying in China. As it turns out, the gluten was contaminated with melamine."
According to Henderson, "for several weeks, there was conflicting information about whether a problem even existed…let alone what the source of that problem might be."
He reminded board members that Menu Foods' first recall was "more than two weeks before any other manufacturer initiated their recall."
But some pet owners are there to remind Henderson he may not have yet grasped how great a "watershed moment" it really was. The general public, having never previously heard of Menu Foods, now wants never to purchase anything made by Menu Foods. Their demands are based on far more than bravado and PR. They are demanding of lawmakers 'third-party-manufacturer' information on labeling so they can be absolutely certain that unscrupulous pet food manufacturers no longer have the ability to sell them contaminated products. They demand proposed legislation granting FDA mandatory recall authority, including deadlines and penalties for companies, which fail to comply.
They belong to a school of thought that Menu Foods has forever changed how pet foods are made, regulated, labeled and shopped for.
In his June annual general meeting address, Henderson stressed this point: "We were more than willing to pay the going rate for what we thought was a product that met all of our specifications."
Not so says the FDA's Dr. Stephen Sundlof, who confirms that Menu paid far less than it should have, and that that alone should have raised red flags.
"We found out that the companies (U.S. pet food manufacturers) had recently switched to a new supplier for wheat gluten and rice protein (where the melamine and cyanuric acid was hidden) for cost reasons," said Dr. Sundlof. "When we went back and looked at the prices they were paying for some of these products, it should have raised some red flags right there. They were far below market price for what those commodities should have been."
Meanwhile at the his company's general annual meeting, Henderson was lamenting the "more than a few" instances of erroneous reporting by the media and stressing the $30 million loss in postponed, cancelled and to-be-returned orders which would have been posted by the end of March. "We have also had to bear some 42 million dollars in unplanned-for expenses in that quarter related to the recall."
Sales for the second quarter will also be adversely impacted.
While everything possible to return to normal business operations is being done at Menu Foods, at various points in this process, the company had to issue temporary lay-off notices for most of its operating employees.
"It is truly unfortunate that these committed employees--who are directly responsible for our strong reputation in the first place--were adversely affected by a fraud that took place halfway around the world," said Henderson.
Menu Foods, determined to stay in the pet food manufacture industry, has recently increased its credit line from $30 million to $50 million (US).
The pet food industry is a lucrative one. Indeed, The Pet Food Institute estimates that, for the US market alone, pet food sales rose from 11.1 billion dollars in 2000 to a record 14.1 billion dollars in 2005.
The bottom line according to Henderson: "Menu Foods has been a participant in that growth, and we are intent on reassuming that role as soon as possible."
Meanwhile, pet food manufacturers were motivated by greed in buying contaminated ingredients for pet food that killed countless pets--a fact not even the most sophisticated Public Relations can ever change.
Canada Free Press founding editor Most recent by Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. Her work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck. Judi can be reached at: judi@canadafreepress.com
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