Organic pet food market may benefit from recall
By Scott Valentine
Thu Mar 22, 3:45 PM ET
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.