Pet food Activism: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

To respond to Debbie Phillips comments on consumer activism: I too think there are various reasons people become activist, and that is reason for my title.

The Good, entails consumers that want to find out the truth about what is going on when some issue comes up. Most of us have unfortunately, become accustom to not believing what we hear, read, are told, nor most of what we see. We assume that we are being lied to or at best, not being told the whole truth. Part of this comes from the way our legal system works, thanks to all of the lawyers who write our laws. The admission of a problem or guilt most likely opens a company to product liability claims and endless lawsuits. Most company’s lawyers tell their clients not to admit guilt and to stall or put up a smoke screen when talking to the press. The press and news organizations too have an agenda many times, so often a negative spin is part of the story. Then of course, being the jaded consumers we are, we want to find out what is really going on. The true activist however, grabs onto any notification of error, as automatic guilt and they want to: “expose the evildoer for taking advantage of the poor consumers” and especially if helpless pets are involved. This is the Bad and Ugly rolled into one. No matter that all the facts may not have been gathered or even determined, these individual activist or groups assume that what ever the wrong deed, it was at the sacrifice of the consumer’s welfare and motivated simply by profits.

Having said this, we as an industry need to get our collective house in order and stop cutting corners, as has happened on more than one occasion that leads to many of these self inflicted product failures. The most egregious error is when quality procedures are not followed. Either internal ones or the ones dictated by the GMPs or at least common sense. All procedures involving receiving, handling or storing ingredients are as important as the processing and handling of the finished products. Inspecting our suppliers is absolutely the first line of defense of quality problems and must be followed to the letter. Next in lined of importance are adhering to proper processing, and sanitation standards. It is unconscionable for a manager at any level to hide behind some legal jargon of not admitting responsibility or saying to the press, “We have QC and QA standards and I thought they were being followed and I didn’t know there was a problem in our plant”.

I know from 35 years in the pet food industry though the facility manager, operations VP, or even the president may not have direct knowledge of a specific quality issue, but there is no excuse for them not. The old adage that "authority can be delegated to individuals but responsibility belongs to everyone" . . . who touches the product or has any contact with the process. We all should recall the recent encounter in the news of the Georgia peanut company that sold peanut butter to their customers even though they knew it was tainted and that it did not meet FDA, much less ethical, sanitation standards for food manufacturers. Several fortune 500 companies were called to Washington for a Senate hearing and a few of the CEOs admitted they failed to inspect or even notice that there was a problem with one of their suppliers. But the company that was the most unconscionable was the one that said that their company had thousands of suppliers and they did not have time to inspect them all. Not only did these executives provide the ammunition to the benign activist, they even pulled the trigger.

So, does this have any thing to do with the pet food industry? Of course it does. We all remember the recent melamine disaster. How many pet food companies, if brought before a Senate hearing, would have come up with the same brilliant statement as the food company executive expounded above?

The US pet food industry is one of the best industries in the world. We provide save, reliable, efficacious and nutritious foods for millions of pets daily throughout the world. We need to always remember we serve two masters: the human customer and most importantly the pet. Both rely on each of us to do our best each day, to provide the products to meet the company’s promise of quality, safety and efficacy. We must follow the strictest QA and QC procedures and always take personal responsibility for each and every mistake before it becomes manna for the activists.
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