Petco Announces New Nutrition Standards

Kefa

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The AAFCO has been getting a bit more serious since the melamine and the phenobarbital, they aren't a regulating agency, but they do issue guidelines and evaluate ingredients. PetCo may just be ahead of the curve on this.
 
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m3rma1d

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When picking up a bunch of kitten food for the fosters yesterday the clerk said Fancy Feast is going out within the next coupla weeks.
I wasn't really sad about it, I was just grabbing a little of everything to get the kittens to eat.

Fancy Feast fans--Stock up now, or wait and see if you can score it on clearance!
 

mizzely

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I also think they are trying to use this as a platform to sell more of their own brands, particularly Whole Hearted. Profit margins on store brands are usually much higher than name brand!

I mentioned to them on Twitter that I would love the same thing happen for bird and small animals as those foods are so full of junk :( Currently that's not in the works
 

tangers40

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I went in my local Petco for the first time in a while today, and man was the cat food selection poor. They hadn't yet gotten rid of things like Fancy Feast, but I could tell other things had been cleared out (some Purina for sure), and they had just spread out stock of other brands to fill the gaps. I used to love Petco because they had a much wider selection of brands than, say, PetSmart, but no longer. It was just 5 or 6 facings of the same flavor of the same brand. I was disappointed. I was expecting them to bring in NEW brands to fill these gaps, but maybe that comes later?
 

lisahe

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I went in my local Petco for the first time in a while today, and man was the cat food selection poor. They hadn't yet gotten rid of things like Fancy Feast, but I could tell other things had been cleared out (some Purina for sure), and they had just spread out stock of other brands to fill the gaps. I used to love Petco because they had a much wider selection of brands than, say, PetSmart, but no longer. It was just 5 or 6 facings of the same flavor of the same brand. I was disappointed. I was expecting them to bring in NEW brands to fill these gaps, but maybe that comes later?
Yes, the Petco selection when I went in on Boxing Day was pretty bad, too. To be fair, it wasn't very good in an independent local chain, either, where they said Christmas had emptied their shelves. (They literally only had a few cat toys left!)

That said, things should have improved by now. And Petco's Boxing Day selection felt worse than Pet Life's because, as you mentioned, there just weren't many facings for certain kinds of food. Wellness Core, for example, had been moved, and had very little space; Nutro Natural Choice also had a small presence. I think they're both getting yanked, though. (Oddly, I stocked up on both those brands months ago, on clearance, but now they're back to full price.) In any case, like you, I was expecting some new brands (other than more Weruva, though I was glad to find the new BFF pates, which our cats love) by now! I, too, always feel underwhelmed by the lack of decent, consistent choices at PetSmart.
 

GalaxyGirl

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I went in my local Petco for the first time in a while today, and man was the cat food selection poor. They hadn't yet gotten rid of things like Fancy Feast, but I could tell other things had been cleared out (some Purina for sure), and they had just spread out stock of other brands to fill the gaps. I used to love Petco because they had a much wider selection of brands than, say, PetSmart, but no longer. It was just 5 or 6 facings of the same flavor of the same brand. I was disappointed. I was expecting them to bring in NEW brands to fill these gaps, but maybe that comes later?
I was hoping that too. Lucky I live 16 miles from a independent pet supply shop that carries a lot of brands you’d only really find one chewy and below the price that is the suggested retail. I guess I’ll be doing my shopping there. Just buying more in bulk.
 

zunarj5

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I was just wondering if Petco's pet food sales figures had changed since this ban was enacted, and if it went down, whether they would be rescinding the ban. Couldn't find any information, but I did find this old blog that doesn't paint a flattering picture of the ban.
Granted, the blog is from an industry website, so that makes it a little suspicious. And the writer owns a pet food company, but I don't think Petco ever carried his food. On the other hand, it could be that he doesn't want big retailers putting more emphasis on premium competitors for his food. Still, it seems most of his points are valid.
 

Azazel

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Let’s be honest here... if a company was really to implement proper standards on pet food quality there would be nothing left on the shelves...
 

cheesycats

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Exactly what azazel said. It’s nice that they did something but they still carry brands like Royal canin which I hate almost as much as friskies dry food. Hell it basically is friskies dry food minus the color additives. But if they got rid of all the foods I despise there’d be very little left. :lol:
also from what I can gather they are pushing services and champion food sales harder than ever lately so I’d say they felt something. But my store sells more blue and hills than anything else so the small felt effect of loosing fancy feast was not bad.
 

zunarj5

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It's not just Fancy Feast, though. Even some expensive grain-free foods were discontinued, like Purina Beyond. As for Blue Buffalo and Hills, my cats have never liked them. Besides, Hills dry food has so many grain fillers that I would never feed it to my cats.
 
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