Press

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25.04.2007

Pet food recall in the United States – Rice protein concentrate also affected

Dear customer,

Last week it was announced in the United States that, in addition to the previous supply of wheat gluten from China, another grain component from starch processing which was imported from China is contaminated with melamine, namely rice protein concentrate.

A raw materials importer from San Francisco who traded in Chinese goods was forced to recall the affected lot of rice protein concentrate. Various American manufacturers of pet food are also affected by this recall.  Further information about the recall is available on the Web site of the American Food and Drug Administration (FDA) at

www.fda.gov/oc/opacom/hottopics/petfood.html#recall.

We would like to point out that both wheat gluten and rice protein concentrate (i.e. rice gluten) are vegetable protein concentrates resulting from the extraction of starch from grain. The separation of the starch and the grain husks from the grain itself during the production process in the starch factory results in products with a protein content 60-80% higher than that of the original products.  These special components must not be confused with normal, technologically unprocessed wheat or rice. There is therefore no reason whatsoever to refrain from using products that contain wheat or rice. 

We do not use any wheat gluten or rice protein concentrate in our pet food products. We do not use any raw materials - not even rice - from China. It is thus perfectly safe to continue feeding our products to your dogs and cats.

Best regards from Suedlohn-Oeding, Germany

Dr. Christoph Deitert

2006-02-16

Avian Influenza (bird flu)  - no danger through pet food!

On Tuesday two dead swans have been found on the island Rügen (Baltic Sea). Scientists have proved the H5N1 virus, which can be dangerous for humans as well. Although the occurrence was not in farming animals nor in mainland Germany, the bird flu has reached Germany for the first time.

Because of the widely use of poultry as ingredient in pet food might lead to some uncertainty of final customers, if the pet food can be fed to their pets without a risk.

All dry pet food and moist pet food of BEWITAL are totally safe and there is absolutely no danger of feeding dogs and cats with our brands
(Belcando, Leonardo, Bewi Dog, Bewi Cat, Dogland and Greif)!

It definitely exists no risk neither to the dogs and cats nor to the keeper of the pets because the influenza cannot be transmitted by pet foods containing poultry ingredients.

 Reasons:

1. Our products exclusively contain poultry material from healthy animals. The poultry  is generally approved for the use of human consumption by the official veterinarian. For that reason our products are as safe as human food. The official veterinarian control particularly takes care that no infected poultry can be processed into human food or pet food.
2. Even if infected poultry, without showing any clinical symptoms of the disease, would be slaughtered and be used as raw material for BEWITAL pet food there is still no risk.
   It is proved that the virus of the bird flu are very sensitive to heat and they are killed already at a temperature over 70° centigrade.

For the production of our dry pet food we only use raw materials which have been heated by over 90° centigrade before they get into our production process. This is certified by a public veterinarian. Furthermore the heating level during the extrusion process has a level of over 100° centigrade which means that all our pet food products are protected through this production step additionally.

According to these facts all moist pet food and dry pet food for dogs and cats of BEWITAL can be fed to the pets without taking the risk of bird flu and therefore can be traded without any restriction.

Dear customer

The “Fast-warning-system” of the EC has announced, that the feeding of the dog food of a well-known manufacturer from the USA has, due to an excessive content of Aflaxotin (toxic chemical by-product from the growth of mould), let to death of dogs.

The analysis of the concerned products that were not imported to Germany have shown a level up to 169 ppb. The cause of it is leaded back to the use of contaminated corn. The by EC allowed maximum content of Aflaxotin B1 in complete dog food is 10 ppb.

In connection of this incident we want to emphasize that BEWITAL is exceptionally using for the pet food production corn from regional cultivation and BEWITAL is not importing any corn out of the USA or other foreign countries!

Due to our high standardized quality control system our products are regularly tested for pollution (e.g. Aflatoxine B1, B2 and G2 and others) at independent laboratories.

So far we haven´t figured out in our tests a content of Aflaxotin that was beyond the official advised detection limit (in the past 1 ppb, today 0,1 ppb).

Therefore our pet food ranges can be fed without hesitation to all dogs and cats!

With kind regards
BEWITAL GmbH & Co. KG