Adding to the ever-expanding dog food recall, SmartPak of Plymouth, Mass., has recalled one of its dog food products, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced April 24.
The company says it’s recalling a single production run of LiveSmart Weight Management Chicken and Brown Rice dog food because it contained rice protein concentrate supplied by Wilbur-Ellis.
Earlier in the week, the FDA said it found melamine, a chemical implicated in the death of 16 cats and dogs and potentially many more, in rice protein concentrate imported from China by San Francisco-based Wilbur-Ellis.
SmartPak, which sells directly to consumers through its website, said it had notified its customers of the recall via both phone and e-mail. Less than 1,200 pounds of the tainted food left its facility, SmartPak said. The company said it does not use rice protein concentrate in any of its other LiveSmart formulas.
Of the five pet food manufacturers that received rice protein concentrate from Wilbur-Ellis, only one remains unidentified; Natural Balance, Royal Canin and Blue Buffalo all recalled dog food products related to the Chinese rice protein earlier this week.
On April 24, the FDA said the remaining company, which it declined to name, was testing its product for melamine contamination before issuing a recall.
The FDA also said it has begun testing additional vegetable proteins being imported to the country for use in both pet and human food items. In addition to wheat gluten and rice protein concentrate, the FDA is now randomly testing corn gluten, corn meal, soy protein and rice bran both at the U.S. border and in domestic food manufacturing plants.
The government agency is also testing all “melamine-related” products after finding additional industrial chemicals in the contaminated pet food, it said. Earlier in the week, Stephen Sundlof, DVM, director of the FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine said the agency was investigating the possibility that the melamine was used to artificially increase the protein content of the rice protein concentrate and wheat gluten.
Some of the contaminated pet food was sold to hog farms in California, North Carolina, South Carolina, Utah, New York – and possibly Ohio – by less than 10 pet food manufacturers, Sundlof said. The companies did not know the food was contaminated at the time, he said.
It was also sold to a poultry farm in Missouri, another FDA official said. Melamine was found in the urine of pigs on the Carolina farms and California, the FDA said, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture was working with state officials in the other areas to look into those pig farms, said David Elder, director of the Office of Enforcement in the FDA’s Office of Regulatory Affairs.
For a complete list of pet foods under recall, click here. To read recent articles on the dog food recall, visit http://www.dogchannel.com/dog-news/dog-food-recall-updates.aspx.