Literally.
ABC News recently released that former workers of the Australian Tallow Producers (ATP) plant have confirmed rubbish is regularly put in commercial pet food.
Following closely from the Mars Petcare megaesophagus scandal, we're actually happy that light is being shone on the manufacturing standards of large, commercial kibble manufacturers (even though it's pretty ugly to see what's lying underneath).
Turns out there’s even more proof that Big Pet simply don’t care about whether your pet receives high-quality, nutritionally appropriate food .... or apparently, whether it’s food at all.
So what is tallow?
Tallow is a form of animal fat that’s made (rendered) by exposing waste animal tissue to extremely high heat, which separates the fat from the bone and protein. What is left is tallow (fat) and protein meal (the rest of it).
Tallow is extremely cheap fat, solid at room temperature and has a long shelf-life. Basically a godsend for commercial feed manufacturers as it provides them with the ‘fat’ content of their products. Its other main use is in the production of soap.
Protein meal performs a similar role. Again, as a waste by-product, it has no use other than in pet foods and animal feed. That protein content you see on the label is made up of this stuff. The reason it’s called ‘protein’ meal is because they can’t narrow it down to any specific animal. Virtually anything could be in that big rendered mess. This is ‘pet-grade meat’.
Also remember that the animals initially used for this process are 4-D meats:
- Dead
- Dying
- Disabled
- Diseased
Poor quality, potentially dangerous, ingredients that make up your bag of kibble or can of wet food.
Yep, pretty awful.
So what’s this latest report?
Well, it doesn’t get better unfortunately.
A former worker of ATP in Melbourne, Dennis Pedretti (and corroborated by others) has come out and spoken about the practices he has witnessed inside the plant. As described to ABC, Mr. Pedretti states that:
“Having been in the industry and seen what goes on, I can see why people are alarmed…we have sheep heads come through. They have a new tag. They go into the pit. There would be plastic, I mean butchers would be getting rid of their material and they don’t care what they are putting in the bin, so it would be plastic, cans, all of those sort of things you would see….
A roller door goes up, a truck backs up, tips it in and tonnes of offal fall into the pit. It goes through an organ, it goes through a mincer. So it is ground up and crushed up and then goes through to the cooking process. So the ear tags with the heat effectively melt and then when it is going through the drying process effectively become a pin head.
The quantity that is going out is in containers, so 20-tonne containers and a lot of containers went out every day so it is a lot of product, a lot of containers, a lot of customers”
So, not only is the ‘meat’ that goes into your pup’s food barely meat at all, but it’s contaminated with all sorts of garbage, including plastic which has melted and resolidified, butchers waste and even tin cans.
Apart from the fact that this is not food, it also poses risk of cuts and internal damage if consumed by your dog.
And, this is an Australian rendering plant.
Imagine what it’s like from plants producing even cheaper materials, in the likes of China?
When confronted with pictures of the melted mess within the plant, Dennis King, Executive Officer of the Australian Rendering Association said:
“I see little, hundreds of little pieces of ear tags or it could be blue gloves”
Given the evidence, they couldn't reasonably deny it. So is it just that they simply don’t care?
Mr. King is also apparently of the belief that the plastic is doing no harm to the pets.
Huh??
If you'd like to know more, you can watch the full report here.
Oh, and by the way, you may find some little blue pieces in your package of CDK9 Raw food too. They’re blueberries! Yellow bits? Paw-paw or pumpkin. Orange and red? Beetroot, sweet potato and apple. Plus all the good greens, of course.
The only plastic you should ever find with dog food is the packaging it comes in – and even then we’re looking for alternatives to make this part sustainable too!
