Menu Foods Settles Pet Food Class Action

Courtesy of Consumer Reports.

Thousands of dogs and cats died and became ill by contaminated pet food

On April 1, 2008 a tentative settlement was announced by Menu Foods. This announcement came almost a year after the massive 60 million containers of pet food recall was made in March 2007. Menu Foods is located in Streetsville, Ontario and it is the largest maker of canned and wet-pouch cat and dog food in North America. It manufactures pet foods for private labels (both high-end and low-end) plus big box pet stores and other retailers and wholesalers.

In January and February of 2007 cats and dogs across America became seriously ill after consuming Menu Foods products. Many succumbed to kidney failure and died. Initially Menu Foods blamed the deaths on aminopterin, a chemical used as a rat poison and as a cancer treatment. However, investigations by the Food and Drug Administration revealed that the imported (made in China) wheat gluten added to the Menu Foods pet products contained melamine (used in plastics and fertilizers), and cyanuric acid (used to as a chlorine stabilizer in swimming pools). When these chemicals are combined they form an insoluble crystal, leading to kidney obstruction and renal failure.

In an April 2, 2008 Consumer Affairs interview Dr. Barbara Powers, former president of the American Association of Veterinary Laboratory Diagnosticians (AAVLD) and current director of Colorado State University’s Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, stated “Either one of those chemicals alone wouldn’t cause these [deaths] It has to be the combination of the two. So it’s not melamine alone.”

It certainly came as no surprise that pet owners from 19 states (and Ontario) filed lawsuits against Menu Foods for damages and compensation of veterinarian bills. Several other companies were named in the lawsuits as well. Among them were: Del Monte Foods Inc. of San Francisco; Nestle of Stamford, Conn.; Procter & Gamble in Cincinnati; Xuzhou Anying Biologic Technology Development Co. Ltd. in Pixian, China; and Suzhou Textile Import and Export Co. in Jiangsu, China.

In an ironic twist of justice, two Chinese companies along with an American importer were indicted for intentionally manufacturing and distributing the melamine-tainted wheat gluten used to make the dog and cat food. Since the Chinese are known to harvest and keep dogs and cats—not as pets but for their meat and fur—it gives a strange sense of satisfaction that they were held accountable for their actions.

View some of the Menu Food victims.