I'm sure by now everyone is familiar with Diamond fiasco and multiple recalls which include diamond naturals, premium edge, taste of the wild, canidae, solid gold, natural balance just to name a few.
I wanted to give them a second chance since their previous shady history, and I was hoping since the introduction of TOTW, they would see the positive turnout and avid following of their consumers and clean up their act. Well, it doesn't appear that way. Since FDA took over and did an inspection of their plant, the results were less then ideal.
http://www.fda.gov/downloads/AboutFDA/CentersOffices/OfficeofGlobalRegulatoryOperationsandPolicy/ORA/ORAElectronicReadingRoom/UCM304252.pdf
Ok, its understandable that such a large scale company would have few quality control issues, but me thinks that they have far more than I would be willing to accept as acceptable. It appears that they have some major sanitary violations and even possible cross contamination with uknown fats and digests.. yuk.
I dont even want to know what goes behind closed doors when inspection team isn't around.
So with a heavy heart, I can no longer in good conscience recommend any diamond products. It makes me sad because price wise, they made a good option for people on tighter budget that didn't want to settle for grocery store foods. Now, I fear that a lot will go back to feeding worse quality foods because of cost and more faith in the company, even if its a large conglomerate like Purina or P&G.
I don't know if diamond will be able to recover from this hit, based on facebook alone, taste of the wild has gone down from 40,000 to only 13,000 fans in matter of few weeks.
So are there any affordable brands that I would recommend? I'm still in process of trying to figure this one out. For example Healthwise is an inexpensive food thats made by Natura (aka P&G), while I'm not a fan of the company take over, since there hasn't been any issues or ingredient change, I feel better recommending that then any diamond foods. Another option is Nutri-Source, it appears to be manufactured by an independent company that also makes pure vita and natural planet organics.
Have you fed any diamond foods, what do you think of the whole fiasco, do you plan on switching? if so, to what?
What about Back to Basics? Or Earthborn?
ReplyDeleterebekah- I was thinking something in terms of cost and quality, that I could recommend to my clients, a lot of people want to try better foods, but price is major deciding factor. I think earthborn is a good option, since it's around the same price as totw, maybe even little less. Back to basics is definitely too expensive.
DeleteSo far I have healthwise, whole earth farms, nutri-source, hi tek naturals, precise and native performance.
I just moved to the Portland area(across the river in Washington state) so my selection of available foods has greatly increased. Unfortunately, the dogs who eat kibble full-time did not move with me (they are not mine) so I can't switch them off Taste of the Wild. Mom's gonna stick with that one due to price, but if they had come with me, they'd either be on full-time raw/homemade or part-time kibble/raw/homemade, depending on total costs.
ReplyDeleteBut I am still open to hearing alternative sugestions, since my Shiba is going through a very annoying picky streak right now.
have you tried horizon legacy? Uno is on the fish one now and he loves it, even more so then acana pacifica, which is surprising, he just gobbles it up.
ReplyDeleteNo, I haven't. Never really heard of it utnil recently. I saw it at a store I was checking out, but didn't really get a good look at it since I wasn't planning on buying anything. I might go back and get some though, I like how the fish formula looks.
ReplyDelete