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Organic pet food market may benefit from recall
TORONTO (Reuters) -
Organic pet food makers and retailers across North America may be the winners as the fallout
settles from the recall of nearly 100 brands of pet food manufactured by Canada's Menu Foods
Inc..
"I just want to find something that won't kill my dog," said Adriana Pierce as
she watched her four-year-old border collie, Tango, race around a downtown Toronto dog park.
"I'm so afraid of him getting sick that I've been feeding him table scraps for three
days."
Natural and organic products may provide the alternative, analysts
say.
"I'd say this is an in for the organic manufacturers and retailers," said
Vivian Ma, a senior retail analyst at CIBC World Markets in New York. "At this point,
consumers see them as an option that represents a source of comfort."
The anxiety
started late last week when Menu Foods recalled its pet-food products, warning they may cause
kidney failure in animals.
The company said a switch in wheat-gluten suppliers at its
New Jersey and Kansas plants may have caused contamination of its brands, including the
top-selling Iams brand. Menu Foods has yet to announce that it has confirmed the source of the
contamination clinically.
"We're getting more customers, that's for sure," said
Chris Baker, an employee at Pet Cuisine & Accessories in Toronto, which sells organic pet
foods and treats. "People are suddenly waking up to what they feed their
animals."
Annual sales in the organic and natural pet foods market have swelled to an
estimated $400 million in the United States, outpacing the growth rate of the nonorganic pet
food market three-to-one. But that's still just a fraction of the total $14.5 billion U.S.
pet food market. The Canadian market is about one-tenth the size of the U.S. one.
Under
U.S. law, food products that bear the organic classification must meet a series of
independently verified standards set by the Department of Agriculture, including being
cruelty, hormone and antibiotic free.
"There just aren't the same kinds of
restrictions on nonorganic producers," said Phil Brown, a Boise, Idaho, veterinary consultant
to pet-food maker Newman's Own Organics.
Brown said Westport, Connecticut-based
Newman's Own Organics has experienced a spike in demand for its products and is able to
increase production if required.
Organic pet stores and alternative veterinarian
services are doing what they can to meet the demands of worried pet owners.
"We're
getting slammed," said Paul McCutcheon of the East York Animal Clinic in Toronto, a holistic
pet care center that preaches fresh food and organic supplements to its clients.
"We
had a positive test yesterday with a cat on the Iams canned wet food."
McCutcheon said
the cat had very high levels of creatinine, a toxin generally excreted by the normal
functioning of healthy kidneys.
© Reuters 2007
 Print | 24-03-2007, 19:27:00
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