A Disgusting Example of What We Are Not Told – Truth about Pet Food

August 29, 2023 Kar-Bay-Inc

In 2006, if by chance you read the Iredell County (North Carolina) Planning Board website, you could have learned about a “proposed expansion” request from “LeaWay Company (Steve Lea)”.

The zoning document provided the request from LeaWay Company to add a “rendering facility” on the Statesville, NC property. The document also states the “Existing Land Use” was “Meat Products Processing Facility (pet food).”

And then if you bothered to keep reading the 5-page legal notice, you would have learned (bold added):

“The applicant seeks permission to add a rendering facility to their existing meat-processing operation which has been in business since 1979 at this location. Lea-Way Company picks up deceased cattle from area farms and provides a means for sanitary disposal; the existing plant processes useable materials into pet food products but it must ship out the unusable parts to outside renderers.”

“LeaWay currently has a monthly average of just over 2 million pounds of material going through their facility. Of this total, approximately 66,000 – 70,000 lbs. (3%) constitute unuseable cattle ruminants that are currently being shipped to outside renderers for processing.”

A pet food that “provides a means for sanitary disposal” of “deceased cattle”? You would want to know which company this is…right?

So, if by chance a pet owner found this legal document disclosing Lea-Way Company makes pet food from deceased cattle from area farms, how would they know which pet food brand is made by this company?

To our knowledge, only one other public document has ever disclosed which brand of pet food is manufactured by Lea-Way Company, and confirmed the quality of ingredients (the source of ingredients) in this pet food (as was disclosed in the 2006 zoning document).

A pet owner would have had to – by chance – read a 2020 FDA Warning Letter to Lea-Way Farms to would learn the pet food name; “dba (doing business as) Blue Ridge Beef”. From the Warning Letter, the pet owner would be provided with confirmation of the inferior quality of ingredients in this pet food (bold added):

“Your firm utilizes tissues from animals that have died otherwise than by slaughter in the manufacturing of pet food without first determining whether the animals suffered any type of illness, injury, and/or whether any medications may have been administered to the animals prior to your pick up from the supplier and subsequent use in manufacturing, such that tissues from the animals would be unsuitable for manufacturing and processing into your pet food.”

That is a lot of ‘by chance’ for a pet owner to learn significantly pertinent information about a pet food. What if a pet owner did not – by chance – happen to read these two documents?

The Blue Ridge Beef pet food website – just like every other pet food using ‘tissues from animals that have died otherwise than by slaughter’ (“a means for sanitary disposal”) – gives no information about the ingredient quality. In fact, the Blue Ridge Beef pet food website –similar to every other pet food website – tells pet owners their food is “Natural” and “100% pure”.

How can pet owners not be told?

There are legally required disclosures for real estate, lending, insurance, used cars, and on and on and on. All of these required disclosures are in place to protect the consumer.

But in pet food – there is NO required disclosure of ingredients sourced from animals that have died otherwise than by slaughter. There is no consumer protection.

Why? Because the FDA does not require pet food manufacturers to tell you.

We have submitted official requests to FDA (Citizen Petition) two previous times asking the agency to stop allowing ingredients sourced from non-slaughtered animals in pet food – both times the agency denied our requests. In July 2022, we submitted another Citizen Petition to FDA citing current law that requires disclosure of these types of ingredients. Even though the FDA is required to provide a response within 120 days – more than a year later we still wait for their response.

Send the FDA Center for Veterinary Medicine an email – telling them consumer protection disclosures to quality of ingredients must be required information on pet food labels and websites. No pet owner should gamble with their pet’s life on ‘by chance’ finding evidence their pet’s food is made from diseased animals that died other than by slaughter.

Email FDA at: AskCVM@fda.hhs.gov.

Wishing you and your pet(s) the best,

Susan Thixton
Pet Food Safety Advocate
Author Buyer Beware, Co-Author Dinner PAWsible
TruthaboutPetFood.com
Association for Truth in Pet Food

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