Maker: Aunt Jeni’s Home Made
Cause: Potential for salmonella contamination
Announcement: FDA caution letter on Feb. 14, 2020 (archived here)
What is involved: The following specific lot of frozen raw dog food:
- Aunt Jeni’s Home Made All-Natural Raw Turkey Dinner Dog Food, 5 lb., Lot #175331 NOV2020
One sample of this product, collected from a store in Washington, D.C., tested positive for salmonella, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
“FDA is issuing this alert because these lots of Aunt Jeni’s Home Made frozen raw pet food represent a serious threat to human and animal health,” the agency explained in its letter. “Because these products are sold and stored frozen, FDA is concerned that people may still have them in their possession.”
That’s the exact same wording used by the agency several months ago in an earlier alert about Aunt Jeni’s Home Made: In August 2019, the FDA cautioned that certain packages of turkey- and chicken-flavored dog food could be contaminated.
This Is Not a Recall — It’s a Warning Letter
Aunt Jeni’s has been quick to point out that neither of these FDA warnings are official recalls. As the company puts it in bold print on its website home page: “There is no recall on any of our products.”
“For the record, we still have never had a recall, in 20+ years,” Aunt Jeni’s explains in an impassioned response letter.
“And yet the public is very quick to jump to conclusions and assume that our product was recalled. Even some of those websites that pet owners subscribe to, to alert them of current recalls, are erroneously reporting that our products were recalled when they were not.”
The company adds:
“There is far more likely to be salmonella present in kibble and other inferior grade products than you will ever encounter in fresh-food ingredients originally intended for human consumption, properly handled and minimally processed.”
FDA Witch Hunt Against the Small Guys?
Aunt Jeni’s maintains that the FDA has been “on a mission to persecute” raw pet food manufacturers.
“No, we will not rush to do a recall just because they claim one sample of our product tested positive for salmonella, when we have been given absolutely no proof, and their sampling and testing procedures have been blatantly violated,” the company says, adding, “We will fight back the only way we can: with truth and information to debunk the irrational panic and fear they are attempting to create among pet owners.”
In other words, watch out for even more fireworks between Aunt Jeni’s Home Made and the FDA in the future.
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There were no more recalls in 2020. Start browsing the previous year’s recalls here:
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