Put Down the Pitchforks, Pick Up the Facts: Let’s Talk Pet Food Recalls

A Little Less Panic, A Little More Pickle: Let’s Talk Pet Food Recalls

When a pet food recall happens, people understandably worry.

These aren’t just products sitting in a cupboard. They’re what we put into the bowls of animals we absolutely adore, often twice a day, every day.

So when questions are raised about a food, owners want answers — and they want them quickly.

Right now, with a voluntary recall being discussed across the pet industry, there are a lot of opinions flying around.

We have our own opinions too.

We don’t stock or recommend this particular brand, and its approach has never been one we’ve personally chosen to support at Pickles.

But this blog isn’t about whether we like the brand.

It’s about how we, as an industry, respond when something like this happens.

Because we think that matters too.

The concern is real — the cause isn’t yet known

Before we go any further, we want to make something really clear.

We’re not denying that there have been reports of poorly pets.

There are worried owners with unwell animals, and those reports have contributed to the concerns surrounding this voluntary recall.

Their experiences shouldn’t be dismissed, minimised or lost amongst arguments about brands and feeding philosophies.

But there’s an equally important distinction:

We don’t yet know

why

.

At the time of writing, the investigation is ongoing.

A reported association and an established cause are not the same thing.

Until there is evidence explaining exactly what has happened, we don’t think it’s responsible for us — or anyone else — to fill that gap with assumptions.

We can take reports of illness seriously without presenting an unconfirmed explanation as fact.

Something has raised enough concern for the company to act, and product has been voluntarily recalled while those concerns are investigated rather than waiting for every question to be answered first.

And that brings us to something we think the pet industry needs to talk about.

We need to support voluntary recalls — not punish them

Let’s start with something that might seem slightly unusual coming from a business that doesn’t stock or recommend the brand involved:

We applaud them for voluntarily recalling their product while concerns are investigated.

We want companies to voluntarily recall products when they have concerns.

We want manufacturers to put their hands up.

We want them to say:

“Something doesn’t look right. We’re investigating it and, while we do, we’re taking this product out of circulation.”

That requires ownership, honesty and, actually, a fair bit of bravery.

Because here’s the uncomfortable question:

If our industry’s response to every voluntary recall is to publicly shame the company responsible, what behaviour are we actually encouraging?

If doing the responsible thing results in competitors piling on, social media exploding and a company’s reputation being ripped apart before an investigation has even concluded, we’re hardly creating an environment that encourages businesses to act early.

In fact, we risk encouraging the opposite.

We want manufacturers to act before they’re forced to.

We want precautionary recalls.

We want transparency.

We want businesses to tell retailers and customers when something might be wrong rather than waiting until they’re absolutely certain something is wrong.

If that’s the industry we want, then as an industry we need to make space for companies to do exactly that.

That doesn’t mean recalls shouldn’t be questioned.

It doesn’t mean manufacturers shouldn’t be held accountable if an investigation establishes that something has gone wrong.

And it certainly doesn’t mean pet safety becomes secondary to protecting a company’s reputation.

Accountability and support can exist in the same conversation.

A voluntary recall isn’t automatically evidence of a company behaving badly.

Sometimes it’s evidence of a company taking responsibility.

And yes, we know there’s a little irony here…

We haven’t forgotten our own experience.

At Crufts, we were actually approached by representatives of this brand and given the hard sell on why the food we were feeding our own dogs wasn’t “natural” or “human-grade” and simply couldn’t compare with theirs.

There was just one slightly awkward detail…

They hadn’t quite twigged that the food they were criticising was our own.

Luckily, we knew enough about the science and nutritional expertise behind our own foods not to be frightened by the sales pitch.

We knew our foods had some of the best scientific and nutritional brains in the country behind their creation and formulation — alongside something slightly less scientific, but equally important to us…

A whole lot of Pickle love. 🐾

More importantly, we knew our dogs.

They were happy, healthy and thriving on their various diets — different brands, recipes, varieties and flavours we’d carefully curated to suit the individual dog.

So we smiled, survived the hard sell and carried on feeding what worked for them.

And that’s really the point.

We weren’t frightened into changing our dogs’ food then, and we’re not going to use somebody else’s difficult moment to frighten you into changing yours now.

We could use this moment to say “See! We told you so.”

We could use somebody else’s difficult week to tell you why our food is better.

We could conveniently point you towards our own shelves.

But we won’t.

Two wrongs don’t make a right.

We didn’t believe fear or clever buzzwords were a good way to sell pet food when we were standing at Crufts, and we don’t believe fear is a good way to sell pet food now.

Our principles can’t only apply to businesses we like.

Because there are humans behind businesses

We’re business owners too.

And watching another business experience one of its worst moments isn’t something we take pleasure in.

Whether it’s a tiny independent, a growing company, a large retailer or a multinational blue-chip business, there are still human beings behind it.

There are people answering frightened customers, people trying to establish what’s happened, people making difficult decisions and probably quite a few people having some fairly sleepless nights.

We might not agree with a company’s nutritional philosophy.

We might not choose to stock its products.

We might fundamentally disagree with elements of its marketing.

But we can disagree without delighting in someone’s downfall.

Another business’s difficult moment shouldn’t become a marketing opportunity for the rest of us.

And worried pet owners certainly shouldn’t become one either.

Where we

will

challenge the situation: retailers

While we support a company making the decision to voluntarily recall a product, what we don’t support is recalled product remaining available for customers to purchase through a retailer while that recall is active.

Once a retailer has been notified of a recall, we believe its responsibility is pretty simple:

Take the affected product off sale.

That’s certainly how we operate at Pickles.

If a product we sell is recalled, it comes off our shelves.

It stays off until we’ve received the appropriate information to confidently put it back.

Thankfully, we’ve only experienced two short-term precautionary recalls since opening — both of which subsequently turned out to be fine.

And actually, that’s rather the point.

A precautionary recall that ultimately finds there wasn’t a problem isn’t a failure.

It’s the system working cautiously.

We’d much rather live in a pet industry where businesses feel able to say “We’re not sure, so we’re going to be careful” than one where they’re frightened of what will happen to them if they do.

But for that system to work, everyone in the chain has to play their part — manufacturer and retailer alike.

Pet safety comes before a sale.

Every. Single. Time.

Please don’t turn a recall into food fear

There’s another part of the conversation we’ve found particularly uncomfortable.

We’ve seen variations of:

“THIS is why you need to READ THE INGREDIENTS!”

And while we’re absolutely advocates for owners understanding what they’re feeding, this massively oversimplifies pet nutrition.

An ingredients list is not an analytical panel.

And neither, viewed alone, tells you everything about the quality, safety or suitability of a complete diet.

Pet nutrition simply isn’t:

Chicken = GOOD.

Something I don’t recognise = BAD.

An ingredient that sounds beautiful on the packet doesn’t automatically make a food nutritionally brilliant.

Likewise, something with a technical-sounding name isn’t automatically sinister.

And this is particularly important in a situation like the one we’re discussing.

The existence of a recall doesn’t suddenly mean everything about a food’s nutritional formulation was bad.

A food can be formulated to recognised nutritional guidelines and developed with professional nutritional expertise, and that still doesn’t answer the question currently being investigated.

Equally, the existence of a recall doesn’t give the rest of us licence to retrospectively declare a food nutritionally inadequate when we don’t yet know what caused the reported illnesses.

Those are two completely different questions.

Until an investigation establishes what happened, we don’t know whether the answer lies with an ingredient, manufacturing, storage, contamination, an interaction or something else entirely.

We simply don’t know yet.

And that’s why shouting “READ THE INGREDIENTS!” isn’t particularly helpful.

An ingredient list couldn’t necessarily have predicted or prevented whatever has happened here — because, at the moment, we don’t actually know what happened.

Good nutritional assessment looks much further than the prettiest ingredients list.

It considers the finished nutritional profile, suitability for the individual animal, nutritional expertise behind the product, manufacturing and quality control, digestibility, analysis and available evidence.

We need to be careful that, in trying to educate owners, we don’t simply replace one piece of misinformation with another.

Then there’s the buzzword bingo…

Fresh.

Natural.

Human-grade.

Premium.

Holistic.

Gently cooked.

Minimally processed.

Species appropriate.

They all sound rather lovely, don’t they?

Some of those words can tell us useful things about a product.

Others can be rather good marketing words.

Here’s the slightly less glamorous reality:

Pet foods are processed in one way or another.

Freezing is processing.

Cooking is processing.

Drying is processing.

Extrusion is processing.

Cold pressing is processing.

Chopping, grinding and combining ingredients into a meal is processing.

“Processed” isn’t automatically a dirty word.

And “fresh” isn’t automatically synonymous with better.

Something being described as fresh, natural or minimally processed doesn’t, by itself, tell us whether that food is nutritionally complete, appropriate or the best choice for the animal standing in front of us.

Which brings us back to the question we actually care about:

Is this the right food for

your

animal?

Because that’s the bit that matters.

If you’re worried about what you’re feeding, please ask

If everything being shared online at the moment has made you look at your pet’s bowl and suddenly think:

“Oh goodness… what am I actually feeding?”

Please don’t panic.

And please don’t let somebody on social media convince you that you’ve somehow been doing a terrible job because you don’t know how to interpret every line on the back of a pet-food bag.

That’s what knowledgeable, qualified support is there for.

Come and talk to us.

Bring us the bag. Send us a photograph. Tell us what you’re currently feeding.

Tell us what your pet loves, what doesn’t agree with them, their age, lifestyle, activity levels, health requirements, budget and all their weird and wonderful quirks.

We’ll help you work through it.

Canine nutrition is something we’re qualified in and genuinely passionate about at Pickles.

Our advice will always be led by the animal in front of us, the available evidence and what is actually appropriate for that individual pet — not by which product we’d most like to sell you.

Sometimes the answer might even be:

“Actually, what you’re already feeding looks absolutely fine.”

Because good nutritional advice shouldn’t begin with:

“Everything you’ve been feeding is terrible — buy this instead.”

It should begin with:

“Tell me about your pet.”

And if you’re worried about your dog’s health…

There’s one bit of advice we want to shout a little louder.

If you’re concerned about your dog’s health because of something they’ve eaten — whether that’s their food, a treat, a supplement or anything else — please speak to your vet.

Ask for help.

If something doesn’t feel right, don’t rely on Facebook comments, frightening screenshots, somebody’s friend’s dog’s experience or the loudest person in the comments section.

Speak to the people genuinely qualified to help you — not the social media warriors.

Your vet can assess the animal actually standing in front of them, investigate symptoms and decide whether testing or treatment is needed.

And if your question is about nutrition rather than an immediate health concern, we’re here too.

We’ll listen.

We’ll look at what you’re feeding.

We’ll help you understand the information you’ve been given and offer the best evidence-based, scientifically supported advice we can.

And importantly:

If we’re not the right people to answer your question, we’ll tell you.

We will never pretend to know something we don’t.

If your dog needs a vet, we’ll tell you to see your vet.

If something falls outside our knowledge or scope, we’ll help point you towards the appropriately qualified professional.

Because helping you doesn’t always mean we have to have the answer.

Sometimes helping properly means knowing who does.

Whether you’ve been a Pickle since we first opened the doors or you’ve stumbled across us for the very first time because you’re worried about something you’ve seen online, you’re welcome here.

We’ll offer help.

We’ll offer scientifically backed advice.

We’ll tell you the truth about what we know.

And we’ll be equally honest about what we don’t.

Because long-time Pickle or brand-new arrival, we care about you and the animal at the end of your lead.

Your pet doesn’t need the trendiest bowl on Instagram

Your dog doesn’t know whether their dinner says fresh, natural, ancestral, holistic, human-grade, premium or minimally processed on the front.

Frankly, most dogs would happily consume something unspeakable they discovered underneath a hedge, so we’re not entirely convinced they’re invested in the marketing department’s vocabulary.

What matters is finding a diet that is safe, nutritionally appropriate, enjoyable, affordable and suitable for the individual animal.

For one pet, that might be raw.

For another, cold pressed.

It might be wet food, gently cooked, kibble, a veterinary diet or a carefully considered combination.

It might carry every fashionable buzzword going.

It might carry none of them.

And that’s okay.

At Pickles, we’ll never promise to find you the trendiest food.

We’ll promise to help you find the right food.

We want an industry where honesty is encouraged

Recalls matter.

The reports of poorly pets matter.

Retailers should act on recalls.

Manufacturers should be transparent.

Owners deserve clear information.

And if an investigation subsequently establishes that something has gone wrong, of course there should be accountability.

But while we wait for those answers, there’s something equally important to protect:

An industry where businesses aren’t afraid to speak up.

When a company voluntarily raises its hand and says “We have a concern, we’re investigating and we’re recalling this while we do”, we should recognise the importance of that action — even when it’s a company or product we wouldn’t personally recommend.

Because we want the next company to do the same.

And the one after that.

We don’t want manufacturers looking at the public reaction to a voluntary recall and thinking:

“What will happen to us if we admit there might be a problem?”

We want ownership.

We want honesty.

We want transparency.

And we want businesses to have the bravery to recall something when they believe it’s the right thing to do.

Our industry’s response should encourage more of that behaviour — not make the next company think twice about speaking up.

We can take reports of poorly pets seriously without deciding we already know what caused them.

We can ask difficult questions without creating panic.

We can educate without food-shaming.

We can disagree with another business without kicking it while it’s down.

And we can use moments like this to make our industry better informed, more transparent and kinder rather than simply louder.

So if you’re worried, ask.

Whether that’s us here at Pickles, your vet, trusted professionals like https://www.instagram.com/thecaninedietitian?igsh=MTV4bWk0bjY5Z2NhbA==Sally the Canine Dietitian, or another appropriately qualified professional, there are lots of knowledgeable, honest people in this industry who genuinely want to help.

Good professionals don’t need to compete over who gets to give the advice.

Sometimes the best advice any of us can give is knowing when somebody else is better placed to help.

No scaremongering. No food shaming. No buzzword bingo.

Just helping you find something safe, delicious and right for your pet.

Katie & the Pickles Team

We’re probably never going to make pet nutrition sound quite as sexy as fresh, ancestral, holistic, human-grade superfood goodness.

But we’ll happily stand in the shop comparing nutritional information, talking about formulations and asking an unreasonable number of questions about your dog’s poo.

Somehow, we think that’s probably more useful anyway.

Long-time Pickle or brand-new arrival — we’ll offer help, scientifically backed advice and, above everything else, honesty.

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