Diamond Pet Foods’ PR Challenges Continue
MSNBC reports that the number of dogs who have died due to Diamond Pet Foods’ aflatoxin-contaminated products has risen to 76.
Unfortunately, getting in touch with the company hasn’t become any easier since I first wrote about the December 20 recall.
Despite its seemingly sincere efforts to help its customers (chief operating officer Mark Brinkman is quoted as saying "It’s going to take some time to take care of all these customers, and we’re going to do it”), concerned pet owners are still having difficulties getting any direct answers.
There’s Shanika Stewart, for example, whose 9-year old Chow Cocoa suffers from permanent liver damage after eating contaminated food:
Stewart says she has not spoken with anyone at the company despite several calls. The family has filled out an online form [link here] explaining their situation.
“You don’t get anybody to talk to and tell your story,” she said. “It’s like they’re not concerned. To me, it’s like they’re saying, ’Oh well, we’ll get to it when we get to it.”’
As a relatively new dog owner, I can understand what these folks are suffering through. If anything happened to my puppy, there’d be hell to pay….
Puppy pic at this link:
http://www.ideagrove.com/blog/uploaded_images/HPIM0050-747606.JPG
Thanks for drawing my attention to this…and it looks like things are getting worse for the company:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060113/ap_on_re_us/toxic_pet_food
Scott, thanks for the link. Why Diamond Pet Foods doesn’t hire a crisis communications firm is beyond me.
These statements from the article you linked to do nothing to save the reputation of the company. In fact, in my eyes, they do greater harm:
“Diamond Pet Foods said employees were warned to test closely for the naturally occurring toxin called aflatoxin, but the sampling methods probably missed a pocket of it in one of the shipments, said Mark Brinkmann, the company’s chief operating officer.”
“The company’s new testing method provides more information but still relies on sampling, Brinkmann said.’There is no foolproof way to do it.’”
After Brinkmann’s statements, I don’t feel reassured whatsoever about their products. In effect he’s saying that, “We did the best we could but something still slipped through. Oops. So sorry.”
I first heard about this issue from Dr. Jane who is a well known holistic vet. She formulated her own dog and cat food products exactly because of this trend to cheapen mass produced branded pet foods with cereals that are prone to toxic molds.
She offers free cat and dog food samples at
http://healthypetsusa.net. Click through to the free cat food page for ordering of dog or cat samples.
Ken