The raw pet food industry is regulated by the FDA. This is because pet food is considered to be a ready-to-serve product where the chicken you buy from your butcher is not. Recently the FDA feels that regulations on the raw pet food industry needs to be changed and that “certain criteria should be considered in recommending enforcement action against animal feed”. In other words they want to do more testing on pet food and determine if they should reject food with very minute amounts of bacteria.
Here’s the problem; bacteria is good for your pet. Their natural diet is to eat dead carcass meat. Their intestinal tract needs this bacteria to be strong so that it can fight of more harmful bacteria. If you feed raw, you know this.
Last month the FDA put out a notice saying that it is accepting feedback from consumers, manufactures, retailers, veterinarians and anyone else with an opinion on this subject. This comment period was to end soon, but because of the gravity of this kind of decision they have extended the commenting period. This extension was announced shortly after the release stating the FDA will be doing random tests on pet food in 2011.
It is so important that everyone from consumers to animal health exporters weigh in on this issue. We know bacteria is a good thing in limited amounts. Therefore we are very clean in our production and careful in where we buy our ingredients. We go to extreme measures to ensure that even when the product leaves our plant is is kept at below 0 temperatures to maintain it’s safety. If the FDA starts rejecting food with any level of bacteria then they will be choking the raw industry and you may have to start buying your raw pet food from a bootlegger.
Please submit your comments to the FDA and to us.
Docket Folder at regulations.gov – go here to find out more about this issue.
