What are Private Label Pet Foods? – Truth about Pet Food

If your pet got sick, and your veterinarian needed specific information about the food he/she consumed – is Walmart, Costco, Target, Kroger (and so many more) brand pet foods going to be able to provide answers?

Petfoodindustry.com states: “According to Whole Foods’ 2010 annual report, sales of store brand products across all categories amounted to approximately 11% of the chain’s overall retail sales in fiscal years 2010 and 2009. The upscale chain’s pet department emphasis on private label is apparent in its strategic placement of its store brands. In petfood and treats, the bright green 365 and Whole Paws packages are centered among manufacturer brands, making the store brands virtually impossible to miss. This placement also allows for easy price comparison, with the store brands offering significant price advantages. For example, whereas 5.5-oz. cans of wet cat food are priced around US$1.50 for Wellness or Organix, the same size can of 365 wet cat food is 59 cents.”

In other words, store brand private label pet foods can be marketed by priority shelf placement to consumers with the added lure of money savings. But…

Private label pet foods are those manufactured by one company for sale under another company’s brand.

As example:

Walmart’s Pure Balance brand is a private label pet food. Walmart does not own pet food manufacturing facilities, instead Walmart has the pet food made for the company by a pet food manufacturer. The ‘other’ manufacturer is known as a co-packer.

Many pet food brands can be considered private label, even human grade pet foods, because many brands (if not most) do not own manufacturing facilities.

Of private label brands, there are two significant divisions.

• One being private label pet foods for large retailers (such as Walmart, Target, Kroger, Costco, Whole Foods, and so on).
• The second being private label pet foods for a pet food company.

Using the Walmart Pure Balance brand as an example of the first type of private label pet food, Pure Balance is the brand – but the brand Pure Balance is not a pet food company. Pure Balance is manufactured by a co-packer for Walmart. The company – Walmart – sells many other private label products from foods to garden supplies to cosmetics. Pure Balance pet food does not have a website, does not have a customer service team specific to the pet food brand.

An example of the second type of private label pet food is The Honest Kitchen Pet Foods. The Honest Kitchen is a human grade pet food manufactured in a human food facility. The company – The Honest Kitchen – does not own the human food manufacturing facility. Their pet foods are co-packed by the human food facility for the company. The pet food company has a website, a customer service team specific only to their pet products, and pet food products are the only products they sell.

There are co-packers that only manufacture for private label brands – such as Simmons Pet Food and Red Collar Pet Food. And there are co-packers that manufacture their own brands as well as brands for other companies such as Sunshine Mills.

The good news and the bad news.

As a group, private label pet food brands cannot be considered better or worse than brands from companies that own their manufacturing facilities. Some brands are highly involved in the manufacture of their food/feed going so far as to directly source their own ingredients (used only in their foods/feeds). Some brands have representatives ‘on-site’ to oversee when their products are being manufactured. And just like companies that own their manufacturing facilities, private label brands are required to meet the same nutrient profiles with their cat foods/feeds and dog foods/feeds. Private label recipes are formulated or overseen by veterinary experts in pet food nutrition just the same as with company owned manufactured brands. But, in most instances pet owners are not informed if a brand is private label and not informed who the co-packer is. Companies will often tell consumers this is proprietary information.

With private label brands made for retailers, there is no pet food company to contact to ask questions. Of most significant concern, there is no pet food specific customer service staff to promptly get you answers to questions should your pet have a health issue related to the pet food.

Most often in the case of large retailer private label brands, the pet products can be manufactured by multiple co-packers. One co-packer might use one source of ingredients, while the other co-packer might use a different source of ingredients. Consumers can get ‘caught in the middle’ with inconsistency.

Ask questions.

Because regulations do not require pet food companies to disclose co-packer information, pet owners need to ask (‘Who manufactures your pet food?’). You might find some brands cannot disclose who manufactures for them – we are told contracts with the co-packer sometimes requires anonymity. This is most often the case with human grade pet foods (human food plants are not keen on disclosing to their human food clients they also manufacture pet food). But ask anyway, just in case.

Pet owners deserve to know who manufactures a brand, knowing this information could actually save a pet’s life should the worst happen. As example…in mid-November 2018 Sunshine Mills issued a recall for excess vitamin D. Nine days later, a Kroger grocery brand dog food was recalled for excess vitamin D. As it turned out, the Kroger brand was manufactured by Sunshine Mills. Had pet owners that used the Kroger private label brand been told in advance Sunshine Mills was the manufacturer, they could have immediately changed foods preventing serious health issues and/or death of their pet (instead of having to wait 9 days for the recall).

Private label pet foods shouldn’t be a secret. Hopefully with more pet owners asking questions, co-packers – even human grade co-packers – will allow brands to disclose this much needed transparency to pet owners.

Wishing you and your pet(s) the best,

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