There’s no doubt that food producers and food outlets have to be careful in terms of allergens and food safety. There’s been numerous high profile cases involving chain restaurants that have hit headlines in recent years for labelling or inaccurate information that caused two deaths. These were young people too, who died from reactions at Pret A Manger to sesame, and another at Byron with a buttermilk allergy.

Amongst the cases that make national news, there’s thousands of others where people are made ill, often seriously, from cross contamination issues or simply inadequate labelling and poor staff training in product knowledge and handling.

Intolerance is one thing, but a diagnosed allergy is far more serious and can cost both the consumer and business.

People often forget too that recalls for dangerous human food is just one part of the product recall landscape.

Pet food is affected too and with many Britons having animals, commonly cats and dogs, food labelling is just as important.

News that caught the eye of DSL Consulting this week confirms that totally.

Fold Hill Foods have made the news for expediting a cat food recall, because of the potential link to the deaths of hundreds of cats from pancytopenia disease, which could be connected to their food.

Now this is not allergy related but it shows the impact that toxic ingredients can have – this manufacturer supplies food to both Sainsbury’s and Pets At Home, so its impact could be widespread. Advice is to return the affected food for a full refund or destroy it.

Dog food can cause similar issues with many voluntary dog food recalls in place globally, many for contamination with Salmonella.

So what do DSL Consulting advise you to do as a consumer or manufacturer?

As a consumer, it’s worth setting up a Google alert for pet food product recalls and subscribing to forums like Pet Food Industry, where recalls are frequently updated. We live in a world rich with information, so you’ll know how easy it can be to find recall news for your pets online.

As a manufacturer, you need:

1. Robust Food Safety Programmes

2. Sanitary movement of food

3. Adherence to accredited safe manufacturing processes

4. Regular audits

Just as consumers can discover and share issues with pet food online, you need to preserve your brand’s reputation by maintaining safe processes, frequent evaluations and expediting product recalls quickly if and when issues arise.

There are 12.5 million dogs and 10.9 million cats in the UK alone. They all contribute to a massive pet food industry and to maintain trust and integrity, product recalls need to be minimised by Uber-safe practices in manufacturing and transportation.

You may or may not know too that pet food companies generate revenue of £2.9 billion in the UK and, with it being such big business with such a potentially fatal impact on pets and their owners, product recall policies and systems need to be in place.

We can help you with this too – email or call David Lovell today.