I'm not a pet food nutrition expert. But I have heard of Blue Buffalo. According to this article in Poisoned Pets, Blue Buffalo admitted its been lying to consumers for years about the ingredients in its pet food:
Blue Buffalo admitted the truth in court yesterday: A “substantial” and “material” portion of Blue Buffalo pet food sold over the past several years contained poultry by-product meal, despite pervasive advertising claims to the contrary. The admission came almost one year to the day when Purina filed a lawsuit against Blue Buffalo for false advertising after testing revealed the presence of poultry by-product meal in some of Blue Buffalo’s top selling pet foods.
Like any pet owner, I wanted to feed my pet the best food I could. I didn't feed Blue Buffalo, but this wasn't because I wasn't fooled by their advertising. Why didn't I feed Blue Buffalo? In 2006 or 2007, I bought a bag. When I fed it, Cleo would throw it all up 10 minutes later. I took her to the Vet who said to change her food back to Royal Canin and if that didn't solve the vomiting she would do blood work. Well, it did solve it. I didn't feed Blue Buffalo because my single one week experience with the food made me think for whatever reason my cat did not tolerate it well.
However, I believed that animal by products and grains weren't good for pets because companies like Blue Buffalo advertised they weren't and how their products didn't contain any of these undesirable ingredients. Yes, like many consumers I was willing to pay more money for a better quality pet food because I cared so much.
In February 2014, Purina engaged Windsor Laboratories to conduct blind testing of samples of multiple lines of Blue Buffalo pet food. The results of that testing can be found here.
The article in Poisoned Pets isn't very complimentary of Blue Buffalo in general. In fact, the company seems to have been mostly marketing and very little substance. Note:
Bishop realized that getting into the pet food market by starting small with contract manufacturers making the product was a no-brainer and that all one had to do was, “Slap on a good label, come up with a slogan, and off you go.” He already knew it would be a cinch to pull the wool over consumer’s eyes, because, as he said, “There were already a lot of smoke and mirrors in how pet food was advertised, and that was the sort of stuff we were good at.”
As I said, I'm not a pet food nutrition expert. The purpose of this diary isn't to educate readers on what ingredients are good or bad although people are definitely welcome to talk about pet food nutrition in the comments.
How many other pet food companies haven't been truthful about the ingredients in their pet food? How many of these premium pet foods sold at a premium price contain the ingredients we are told they don't? How do we know what to believe?
I guess I'm a little upset.
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