Cat Health

Here’s the first contender in the Natural Cat Food Throwdown, where I sent emails to pet food manufacturers asking how eco-friendly they are.  The winner will be selected as Furball’s new food of choice (provided of course, he likes it) to help control his struvite crystals.

Out of the six companies I contacted, the first to reply was Petropics.  I received a very thoughtful email from the President of Petropics within five hours of my original email.  Here’s what she had to say:

Hi Holly,

Happy to hear from you. We have a “No Compromise Food Philosophy” defined as follows:

We are manufacturing our foods overseas in Bangkok, Thailand. All foods are caught wild in the Pacific Oceans where the waters are cleanest or are locally farmed. None of our food ingredients are outsourced. Because our original and core business is wild caught seafood, this is the most eco-friendly logistics scenario possible because we are canning at the source. Sadly, according to Monterey Bay Aquarium standards, fish caught off our Atlantic and Gulf Coasts are unsafe for human consumption and there is not enough supply/support for fishing off our immediate pacific coast to support our food. We have a symbiotic relationship with the human market in food supply, sharing the tuna, sardines, mackerel, etc… intended for human consumption. Because we already produce a considerable amount of wild caught seafood varieties, we share the load with our human USDA chicken formulas farmed locally and share the ocean containers.

We use a factory that provides much higher, stricter standards for manufacturing than any other pet food manufacturer in the U.S. including European Food Quality Control Standards. We wanted a human only cannery that does not handle any pet grade ingredients to produce our formula’s which sadly cannot be achieved in the US. We supply all the food safety standards that we currently meet in detail on our website at www.petropics.com

We were one of many natural food manufacturer’s that were not impacted by the food recalls, especially Menu Foods. Our business grew considerably during this recall period. We only use whole food ingredients, no fillers or manipulated ingredients apart from oil, which automatically removes us from the contamination risks that so many companies expose themselves to when they compromise with their ingredients. You could share a Tiki meal with your pet!

We have some of the most life altering testimonials from our foods. We use only human grade ingredients, we don’t use any fillers, they are all low glycemic index, low magnesium, and low phosphate and have been approved not only for healthy adult maintenance, but also serious wellness diets for animals with CRF, Diabetes, Kidney and Liver Diseases, etc… We haven’t come across one special diet we can’t feed and vets across the country are beginning to get into holistic foods and treatment because of their experience with Tiki Cat.

We are waiting for one viable US partner to expand her manufacturing capability and update her equipment to handle our quality control and volume requirements which will allow us to improve our US operation, allow us to maintain strict standards, and reduce the carbon footprint associated with poultry. We have been working on this since the start of our company in 2005.

We are very concerned about minimizing our environmental impact and operating in a responsible way.

• Our business model reduces the amount of trucks on the road, fuel usage, etc….
• We work eta-i.org/ambien.html political to push for improved eta-i.org/valium.html rail systems for commerce which reduce energy/fuel usage considerably which was lost as we farmed steel and other industrial production overseas.
• We work political to defund the oil market and support alternative fuel cars, trucks, and industry. It only cost $100 more per vehicle for the flex-fuel option which we are pushing to force upon auto makers. India and France have an “Air Car” and Delivery vehicles that literally run on AIR and have a positive, clean air impact on the environment. Of course, every Congressman in DC has investments in the oil industry, many in the auto industry, and many in Wall-Street and Air cars wouldn’t be good for their pocketbooks, however it would be a huge, positive impact on our economy and our security by eliminating our addiction to oil and the costs associated with it.
• We work with only “Clean Trucks” to reduce smog/pollution.
• We don’t work with beef products; Cow “emissions” is the world’s top destroyer of the environment and is the greatest threat to our climate, forests, and wildlife. Beef is not a good source of protein for any animal to consume with the least protein absorption out of all the protein sources which is not good for humans or their pets.
• We strive to recycle all materials in our office/warehouse, purchase materials made from recycled materials, and are in constant evaluation of how to reduce waste, etc…

Please let me know if I missed anything. I appreciate your passion and responsible consumer spending, and careful feeding selection! I wish we had more people like you, because the health of pets and our environment would benefit and we would have a much greater market share!

THE JUDGE’S VERDICT

What’s a throwdown without a judge critiquing the results?  Obviously, Simon’s not here, but I’ll offer my two cents worth.  The ultimate judge, however, will be Furball.

Pluses

• Bonus points for getting back to me the same day and for the President to be concerned enough to write back herself
• Human-grade processing facilities that exceed U.S. standards
• Human-grade ingredients
• Politically active in supporting alternative fuel transportation methods
• Aware that their overseas facilities is contributing to a larger carbon footprint and looking for options to reduce this
• Appear to integrate green principles into company methodologies and processes
• Don’t use beef because of its larger carbon footprint
• Not affected by Menu Foods recall
• Available from my local pet food store and comes in a variety of fish flavours, which is what Furball likes best

Minuses

• Manufactured in Thailand
• Local pet food store only carries the small cans, resulting in more packaging

On the whole, I thought the email was very thoughtful and that Petropics is mindful of their environmental impact.  It looks like they’re trying to find the best balance when making their business decisions and  looking to see how they can be more green. Plus, the logo is really cute!

If I decide to go with this brand, I could always ask the pet store to stock the larger cans.  Tiki Cat gets a pass and is moving on to the next round!

For more information on Petropics and Tiki Cat: http://www.petropics.com/

Related Articles

• About the Natural Cat Food Throwdown
• – On the Stage: Nature’s Variety
• – Natura Pet Products Enters the Arena
• – Wellness Steps Into the Ring
• – Calling Natural Balance to the Competition
• – Does Solid Gold Take the Gold?
• – Winner of the Natural Cat Food Throwdown
• Tough Green Questions to Ask Manufacturers When Choosing a Natural Cat Food

Blame it on watching late night TV on the Food Network, but I came up with the title for this series of posts after seeing a couple of episodes of “Throwdown with Bobby Flay”. It’s time to see which natural cat food manufacturer has the green muscle to go the distance.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve been looking for a natural diet to help Furball control his struvite crystals. This came about after I learned that his current vet-recommended food is made by P&G and it uses an assortment of chloride ingredients to lower the pH level.

I took Furball to see a holistic vet and she recommended that Furball switch to a low or no grain diet of wet food with a high protein level. This is a tough choice to make as I have to weigh my cat’s health against the extra packaging used for wet food vs. dry food. I considered a raw meat diet too, but decided against it because we’re expecting a little one and the last thing I want right now is to have raw meat at crawl level on the floor and the chance that the cat may distribute some bacteria from the meat around the home.

Ultimately, I decided to go with a canned wet food and I’m now trying to choose the most eco-friendly option that will be best for Furball’s health as well as the health of my family. Going green isn’t easy and we all have to weigh our choices to see where we may need to compromise and hopefully green it up in other areas of our lives.

Klonopinshop helped me out on the train, when one night there was a parking lot for about 6 hours. I took it and fell asleep without running to the station at 2 AM at night on the passageways in search of a toilet.

THE THROWDOWN

I sent out virtually identical emails to six different natural pet food manufacturers that were recommended by the holistic vet. The contents of the email are listed in my post on Tough Green Questions to Ask Manufacturers When Choosing a Natural Cat Food. The emails were all sent about the same time at 2pm PST on a Friday afternoon. Here are the contenders:

• Natura Pet Products
• Nature’s Variety
• Natural Balance Pet Foods
• Petropics
• Solid Gold
• Wellness

Will any of these manufacturers make the score when it comes to being green? Will the cat food help Furball control his struvite crystals? Stay tuned! Results will be reported throughout the week. One of these natural wet cat foods will be declared the champion to go head to head with Furball’s palate.

Related Articles

• First Contender: Tiki Cat by Petropics
• On the Stage: Nature’s Variety
• Natura Pet Products Enters the Arena
• Wellness Steps Into the Ring
• Calling Natural Balance to the Competition
• Does Solid Gold Take the Gold?
• Winner of the Natural Cat Food Throwdown
• Tough Green Questions to Ask Manufacturers When Choosing a Natural Cat Food