The Canine Meals Advisor was born out of tragedy when Dr. Mike Sagman’s canine, Penny, died in 2007. She’d been consuming a meals that was a part of the U.S.’s greatest and most notorious pet meals recall.
This website was created to shine a lightweight on not solely the various high quality of pet food, but additionally the security of its manufacturing — which is why we report each pet food recall and have a free pet food recall alert service.
It goes with out saying that some producers are higher at meals security than others. We requested Braeden Ruud, the co-founder and CEO of Raised Proper, a 5-star-rated canine and cat meals model — and an organization seen by many because the gold normal the sector of pet meals security — to inform us how the finest pet food manufacturers make pet food safely and keep away from recollects.
Some Background
The Ruud household’s roots in farming and ranching date again centuries. Whereas elevating meals for people, we determined it was time to supply the identical high quality of meals for pets. We had been motivated by the identical, lethal 2007 outbreak that brought about Mike to create The Canine Meals Advisor.
Our household wished to create an organization that pet dad and mom can belief by inserting a powerful emphasis on security, transparency, and diet. Thus, Raised Proper was born and this human-grade pet food firm is now considered by many pet diet specialists because the trade chief in meals security.
The Human-Grade Commonplace
Many of the pet food available on the market right now isn’t produced to the identical requirements because the meals that we eat as people. To ensure that an organization to say its pet food is human-grade, each ingredient and the ensuing product should be saved, dealt with, produced, and transported in a way constant and compliant with human meals legal guidelines.
Every ingredient should go the upper requirements wanted for human consumption and the meals should be made in a USDA-inspected human-grade facility that can be registered as each an FDA animal meals facility and an FDA human meals facility.
Lab Security Batch Testing
Testing the meals for pathogens like E.coli, listeria, and salmonella is an important step for meals security. Some corporations check every batch they produce, some carry out random testing each few months, and a few don’t check in any respect. There are corporations who select to carry out the testing themselves, whereas others really feel it’s extra moral to have a third-party laboratory do the testing as a result of this prevents any probability of corruption from taking place.
Not solely can we implement speedy swab testing for pathogens throughout every manufacturing run, however the completed product from each single batch we make goes to a third-party lab to be examined for pathogens too.
Maintain-Launch Program
Moreover, we’ve a hold-release program the place we don’t ever ship our meals except it passes the lab security check. It’s one factor to check for pathogens, nevertheless it’s one other factor to verify the meals doesn’t get launched to the market earlier than the check outcomes are obtained.
To forestall an issue earlier than it turns into one, corporations can implement such a program, the place every batch of meals doesn’t depart their facility till they obtain the detrimental check outcomes. This manner, if a batch ever exams constructive for pathogens, the corporate can eliminate it earlier than it ever leaves their facility and, extra importantly, earlier than any canine eats it.
Dietary Evaluation Testing
Whereas it’s vital to verify the meals you’re feeding your canine is made as safely as potential, it’s additionally vital to know that the meals incorporates the vitamins obligatory to fulfill AAFCO’s requirements for an entire & balanced eating regimen.
AAFCO (The Affiliation of American Feed Management Officers) is a non-profit group that units requirements for each animal feeds and pet meals in america. Because it’s very difficult to fulfill AAFCO’s dietary necessities, pet food corporations work with veterinarians and pet meals formulation specialists to assist them formulate their recipes.
Whereas most canine meals are formulated utilizing laptop software program that incorporates the dietary knowledge of every ingredient to stability the recipes, some corporations go a step additional and do dietary evaluation testing on their completed product to show that their formulation methodology works.
We’re the primary firm to voluntarily submit a recipe to be examined by Test Your Pet Meals. The outcomes from testing our Unique Turkey Grownup Canine Recipe confirmed that the assured evaluation matches our label and that the dietary evaluation meets AAFCO’s requirements for an entire and balanced eating regimen for grownup canines by way of utilizing solely complete meals with out having so as to add any artificial nutritional vitamins and minerals.
Transparency
Transparency breeds belief, nevertheless it additionally makes manufacturers elevate requirements. In the event that they’re going to be open about their elements and lab outcomes, then these must be of the best high quality.
Raised Proper chooses to brazenly publish the check outcomes from every batch on our web site for everybody to see, together with a video exhibiting how our meals get made. There’s additionally an interactive map the place you may hint every ingredient to its supply so you understand the place the elements in your canine’s bowl are coming from.