Ingredient Sourcing and Safety
The question we are asked the most is “what is the country of origin for all of your ingredients?”, followed quickly by the comment, “I just want to make sure nothing is made in China.”
What’s with the fear of Chinese ingredients?
Well, back in 2007, China was getting a little creative with its ingredients. Water was added to milk to increase its volume, but since the added water diluted the protein content, melamine was added to fool the tests. Melamine typically ends up in plastics, and obviously shouldn’t be in things like, oh, baby formula, frozen yogurt, or pet food.
This obviously had some unpleasant consequences. Quite a few babies took ill, and some died.
And dogs and cats also died, which led to recalls throughout the pet food industry.
So yeah, ok, it makes sense that there’s some concern about ingredients from China. It also makes sense that there’s some concern about the companies who were involved with the recall, which leads to consumers wanting more information about what ingredients are used and where they come from.
And companies have opted to take matters into their own hands, because nobody wants a situation like this to happen again. As a result, good companies are testing ingredients they import to ensure their safety.
Why is that so important?
In many cases, it’s really tricky to avoid sourcing ingredients from China. It’s estimated that almost 80% of the chemicals used to make drugs (both OTC and prescription) that are sold in Europe come from China and India.
And that ibuprofen you just took for your headache? 95% of the ibuprofen the US imported in 2018 came from China.
In the case of supplements for pet food (and humans, too!), most can be sourced from non-China companies except for a critical few, such as B-12.
For Balanced Blends, we take quality seriously (we feed our food to our pets!), and have a letter on file from our supplement provider asserting that they rigorously test their products for quality and purity. They also share their testing results with us, and they let us know if there is an issue with anything they’ve tested.
The world isn’t a perfect place, but we believe this is the best solution to ensure our food is healthy and safe for our pets.
