Okay, but this doesn’t address my principals questions and points:
Meat by products (at least in my understanding) can include euthanized animals, road kill ect. This is a far cry from liver and intestines.
Dog food without meat by products commands a higher price on average (generally by about 300%). So either Wall-Mart is selling these two "flavors’ way below market price (without even touting the fact) or they are over looking or misrepresenting the contents. I just want the truth as to what is really going on here with this dog food. I haven’t been this consumed with a question since my Barbecued Baked Lays were mysteriously compromised by the “KC Masterpiece” take over!
A bit of persistent googling resulted in this link. A relevant quote follows:
And another:
I must say, it is difficult to find any reference to “industry standards” for pet foods (and if you think it isn’t then post some examples).
As far as the OP’s initial question (and nearly all the replies fail to address this), I can only speculate why two flavors of Old “Boy” (love that!) do not have meat byproducts on the label. I suspect it is neither the result of fraud nor marketing error. I do suspect that the cost of the contents for each flavor falls well below the price on the can, and probably varies only a little from one flavor to the next.
Old Roy bills itself as (at least) nutritionally adequate, and I’m sure that the actual nutritional value of the food is different to some degree for each flavor. Perhaps Wal-Mart thinks it would be undermining their nutritional claims for Old Roy if they re-labeled (and jacked the price up on) certain flavors, to provide the pet-loving public with “Old Roy Premium, It’s way better than that Old Roy crap!”
Are you reading-impaired? Jeez. You’ve already been told by Paul in Saudi, several times, that “meat by-products” are the stuff that humans won’t eat off animals we do eat. Humorous restaurant names and jokes about various ethnic groups aside, we don’t eat roadkill.
It’s not cost-effective for the rendering plants and dogfood manufacturers to hope that Cletus and Jethro bring in a new batch of roadkill today for their cheap-o foods. Face it, most dog foods, except for the Premium and specialty stuff, contains some amount of byproducts. Here’s a link to a national rendering plant that tells exactly what animals they use to make “meat by-products”. You’ll notice that “roadkill” is NOTICEABLY ABSENT.
Incidentally, I found that link on the first page of a Google search for “meat by-products”. You might want to consider trying that sometime.
First, no it is not obvious. Your basic premise is flawed, therefore you will never get a satisfactory answer to your question.
Meat or meat by-products are used as a protein source in producing dog food. There are many non-meat sources that can be used in place of meat. Caseine, whey, soybean meal, corn gluten meal, rice, and egg are all used as protein sources in the production of dog food. (Cite: Small Animal Clinical Nutrition 4th edition Hand, Thatcher, Remillard, Roudebush Copyright 2000).
What you are saying may or may not be true. I have heard many “so called” experts (generally being interviewed in the context of local radio shows such as the now defunct Stan Solomon show) say that with Alpo and other discount brands that animals from shelters (that have been euthanized) are used to produce the “bone meal” included in these foods. Also, your response in not responsive to my the primary OP question:
Why do only two of the more than six Old Roy meat dog food flavors not list “meat byproducts” as ingredients? Furthermore, is Wall-Mart even aware of this situation, and does it reflect an actual difference in ingredients or an error on the label?
You must’ve missed the information (and admitted speculation) I provided above. Truth-in-advertising laws most likely dictate that if an ingredient makes up more then some minimum percentage of the whole, it must be listed on the label. Perhaps the amount of meat byproducts in those two flavors does not meet or exceed that legally-required minimum, and are therefore not listed?
No, your explanation is perhaps the best one presented so far. I just don’t understand why they would not use meat by-products in these two flavors (in sufficient quantities to be listed) when they did in every other variety (which sell for the same price).
Also, I’m still not clear on whether or not meat-by products can legally contain euthanized animals or “road kill”. I know that “road kill” was used for this type of purpose at one time because there was a local facility that conducted this operation (I think it was called Boss Backs). My high school psychology teacher Doug Johnson, often talked about a Summer he had spent working there, and how his job was to “throw” the deceased animals into a machine which ground them up (or rendered them). In addition, you could “call” Boss Backs to have dead animals removed from the road. There were many days that we could smell the horrible stench of the place even though we were about eight miles up wind . They were finally shut down, due to many citizen complaints (most relating to the smell).
Here, I found an article about that old plant: Here is a link to the search I did at the newspapers website since there were many articles on the subject: http://www.shelbynews.com/Search.asp
Rendering plant owner may be fined
JOHN WALKER jwalker@shelbynews.com
The county is considering fining owners of a former animal rendering plant for not cleaning it up.
The commissioners are scheduled to discuss conditions at the 25-acre site where Bausback and Co. was located during tonight’s 7:30 meeting in the Courthouse Annex, 25 W. Polk St.
Darling & Co. of Dallas owns the site at 1796 W. Washington St. along the Big Blue River west of Shelbyville.
Last year, the firm offered to sell the property to the county for $10 if the county would clean it up. There had been some discussion of turning it into a park.
The county rejected Darling’s offer after environmental testing by the state and statements from former Bausback workers. Tests revealed possible contamination by petroleum from storage tanks on the site.
A local trucking operator told the commissioners he had worked at cleaning up the land in the 1980s after Bausback closed. Kenny Paxton said at least one of the ponds on the property has 10 to 20 semi-truck loads of grease and bone marrow at the bottom of it.
County Commission president Bob Wade said the county may fine Darling for not cleaning up the property.
“I think we’ll have to go through the process to start fining them,” he said.
I don’t know about the regulations for dog food, but the U.S. Department of Agriculture requires that any meat byproduct that is sold in interstate commerce for human consumption be labeled as to what animal it comes from. The term “meat byproducts” itself is not sufficient.
If you thought Old Roy was cheap, I visited Aldi’s for the first time in several years today. I found a brand of “meat” dog food called SHEP Premium Beef Chunks Dinner for dogs. It sells for twenty five cents per can and also doesn’t contain any animal or meat byproducts. It’s top ingredients are listed as water sufficient for processing, chicken, beef, soy flour, carrageenan, guar gum, salt carame., iron oxide, onion powder, garlic powder, calcium carbonate, maganous oxide, zinc carbonate, choline chloride, vitamin supplements A, D3, E, B12, Niacin, Calcium Pantothenate, Riboflavin, Pyridoxine hydrocchloride, Thiamine mononitrate, folic acid, and D-Biotin. I tried to convince my wife that we could save a great deal of money (and probably lose alot of weight) by eating the stuff ourselves (mixing it with some rice and beans and a little cheese maybe). It’s not Monkey Chow, but then again Monkey Chow (if you could even find the stuff) is probably alot more expensive than twenty five cents per serving.
Also, they had white bread for thirty cents per loaf (wheat or oat was forty five cents), skim milk for a $1.40 per gallon and chicken noodle soup for thirty cents per can (it tasted as good as Campbells). We are talking prices at least twenty five percent lower than even Wall-Mart here. You do have to pay ten cents for plastic bags (five for paper), and they want a quater deposit on your shopping cart (which is returned when you return the cart). The store was clean and neat and the line relatively short.
