PET FOOD LABELING

During the past few years, there have been dynamic quality improvements in the ingredients used in the manufacture of pet foods. These improvements for better products have resulted from the pressure of health-conscious consumers. Still, many pet owners are unaware of what they are feeding their pets. Pet feeding, like many other aspects of our daily exposure to the marketplace, is subject to fads, trends, paranoia and misinformation. The vast array of pet foods available can cause tremendous confusion and most pet owners select their pet's diet on the price or the effective hype of advertising campaigns, rather than for objective reasons.

Consumers have become "label readers" on both human and pet food. They are starting to question pronouncements from the "experts" and "testing labs" on pet food labeling. They have concerns that animal meat by-products may not actually provide a nourishing and balanced diet for pets. Such by-products can include diseased and contaminated slaughterhouse meats, feathers, intestines, hair, animal road kills, euthanized companion animals and dehydrated garbage all rendered together and used in some pet foods. They have additional concerns about the harmful effects in the use of chemical additives.

Flint River Ranch uses no breakfast food by-products, cottonseed, corn cobs, peanut hulls, wood fibers, citrus pulp, soy beans, fillers or other foreign materials such as weeds, straw or chaff in our foods. Flint River Ranch foods have maintained the same consistent quality since first formulated.

The use of low quality by-products and chemical preservatives may be associated with dry skin, allergic reactions, dental disease, poor health and degenerative organ dysfunction.

Healthy pet diets can also mean less medical bills. There is a strong link between high quality foods and the dynamic health of pets.