FDA issued a corporate-wide warning letter to Midwestern Pet Foods, Inc. (Midwestern) on August 9, 2021. The letter states that inspections of the company’s pet food manufacturing plants revealed violations across multiple plants that were connected to illness or death of hundreds of animals that ate Midwestern’s dry dog food. The warning letter states that Midwestern’s manufacturing facilities presented serious violations of FDA’s Hazard Analysis and Risk-Based Preventative Controls (HARPC) requirements and that the company has not taken sufficient action to respond to FDA’s concerns about preventative measures for the presence of mycotoxins and Salmonella.

In January 2021, Midwestern recalled over one thousand lots of its SPORTMiX-brand cat and dog food products manufactured in the company’s Oklahoma plant because of the presence of aflatoxin. This was followed by a March recall of other Midwestern brands manufactured at the company’s Illinois plant where samples tested positive for Salmonella.

Some Midwestern product samples were found to contain levels of aflatoxin as high as 558 ppb; FDA considers pet food to be adulterated if it contains more than 20 ppb of aflatoxin. The adulterated products were linked to 130 pet deaths and more than 220 pet illnesses. Groups of consumers with pets that died or became ill after consuming the recalled products filed two proposed class action lawsuits in January and February 2021. We will continue to monitor and report on developments regarding these cases and FDA enforcement in pet food manufacturing.