First, let's re-cap; Mars purchased Doane in 2006-they may be using the old Doane facilities in Franklin, TN for something:
http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20060426005450&newsLang=enMars, Incorporated Announces Agreement to Acquire U.S. Operations of Doane Pet Care Company
April 26, 2006
"Mars, Incorporated and Doane Pet Care Company, a Nashville, TN-based private label manufacturer of dry pet food, announce today that Mars has entered into an agreement to acquire Doane's parent corporation, Doane Pet Care Enterprises, Inc., from Teachers' Private Capital, the private equity arm of Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan."
http://www.doanepetcare.com/Tel: 615-807-4626
315 Cool Springs Blvd.
Franklin, TN 37067
They bought Nutro a year ago:
http://www.nutroproducts.com/press5-1-07mars.shtmlMars, Incorporated to Acquire Nutro Products, Inc.
May 1, 2007
"Mars, Incorporated today announced the signing of a definitive agreement to acquire the global pet food operations of Nutro Products Inc., a leading manufacturer of high nutrition, high performance dog and cat foods sold in pet specialty and farm and feed stores."
http://www.petfoodplantsolutions.com/html/about_nutro.html"Our products are sold across the country and in pet stores in the
Victorville area. At our Victorville facility, we produce only our dry premium pet food products (dry kibble). In addition to Victorville, we have a plant operating in
Tennessee."
http://www.agriculture.state.tn.us/Marketing.asp?QSTRING=DETAIL&SCREEN=MPE&DISPLAY=773Nutro Products Inc.
George Briscoe
Plant Manager
920 Artic Drive
Lebanon, TN 37087-5300
Phone: (615) 449-4996
Fax: (615) 449-5903
http://www.simplyhired.com/job-id/vcqil5eu5m/plant-accountant-jobs/"Plant Accountant - Lebanon, TN
"Nutro Products - Tennessee
"Nutro Products, Inc. a subsidiary of Mars, Inc. is a leading provider of premium and super-premium pet foods sold exclusively in the pet specialty channel. Founded approximately 80 years ago and headquartered in City of Industry, California, we sell a broad portfolio of dry and wet pet foods, biscuits and treats for dogs and cats of varying breeds, life stages and activity levels."
What we're going to look at here is a legal challenge to Nutro's advertising for its Lite pet foods. I think it's quite enlightening from the standpoint of how they conduct their business re: testing and so on. The "challenger" is Hill's and the "advertiser" is Nutro.
http://www.adlawbyrequest.com/_db/_documents/NAD,_Nurtro_Products.pdfCase #4714 August 21, 2007
Page 3-
"The testing protocol that Nutro attached (to its submission) indicates, without support, that any product samples created at least twenty minutes apart constitute separate "production batches". This statement seems to suggest that the average MEC (Metabolizable Energy Content) for the individual samples from a SINGLE production run--such as the 3057 kcal/kg result Nutro obtained on June 21--could, by itself, substantiate Nutro's "Lite" claim, even though
Nutro averages the results from THREE separate production runs and cites this as its support in its submission. Nutro's "20 minute" definition finds no support in AAFCO's guidelines, nor is there any authority to support it. In practice, samples from different production batches--as is required by AAFCO--are most easily identified on the retail shelf by looking for products that bear different date codes, as Hill's did in its testing. In fact, AAFCO has issued a guidance memorandum, which is available to the public at:http://www.aafco.org/Portals/0/Public/Guidance%20DocFinal.pdf describing how animal feed manufacturers should identify different "production batches" (a term the document uses interchangably with "production lots") using such codes on the packaging. According to the guidance memo, "All feed and feed ingredients should contain a code that links the individual production lot to production records so as to provide a history of such product. The code should be contained either on the product packaging, labeling or other distribution records..." In any event, Nutro itself cites the average MEC from THREE data points, one for each production run it tested--not the average from the individual samples within any single production run--as the relevant final "number" that it claims relates to AAFCO's "Lite" standard. Nutro's own method thus recognizes these three results as the relevant data.Page 4-
"The challenger took issue with the advertiser's explanation that the high MEC values obtained by the challenger's testing might be linked to
temporary product irregularities caused by Nutro's switchover from its Wilson Way production facility to new factories. The challenger argued that it was unlikely that the samples it tested all came from the Victorville, CA plant, as opposed to Nutro's other production facility in Lebanon, TN, which, argued the challenger, the advertiser admitted has produced its "lite" dry products continuously since 1996. Moreover, argued the challenger, the advertiser had not provided evidence that there were, in fact, such temporary irregularities in its "lite" dry products' MEC levels at the Victorville facility.
Second, argued the challenger, the samples it tested came from products actually available to the public for purchase (which is how it acquired them). It selected the products to be tested based on the date codes printed on the bags, to ensure a range of unique production lots, argued the challenger, and reported these codes with the test results. On the other hand, contended the challenger, the advertiser apparently tested samples coming straight off the production line at one of its facilities (without specifying which one). Additionally, the advertiser did not state whether it tested samples of the same product formula that is now on store shelves and available to Page 5
"consumers.
Based on such information, argued the challenger, it is impossible to know exactly what the advertiser tested, including whether the three production runs tested were of the same formula and, if so, whether this was the reformulation described by the advertiser.
Third, while the challenger submitted samples of the products to an independent laboratory for testing, the advertiser conducted its own in house testing. The challenger contended that "althought in-house testing may be proper in some circumstances and it not per se less reliable, in light of the other deficiencies in Nutro's data and in light of the delays in Nutro's submissions and the shifting statements Nutro has made to NAD, this is an additional reason to credit Hill's results."
Moreover, argued the challenger, of the three production runs tested by the advertiser, the results from two of them (May 17 and June 15) were over AAFCO's maximum allowable MEC of 3100 kcal/kg as was the average of all three (3118 kcal/kg). The advertiser had admitted, argued the challenger, that it thus did not meer AAFCO's standard, but contended that the 3100 kcal/kg limit was only suggested and not an absolute limit. The challenger stated that, to the contrary, the plain language of the Regulation indicated the 3100 kcal/kg was "a bright-line threshold".Page 8
"In addition to its explanation that
the challenger's test evidence of caloric values exceeding AAFCO recommendations was a result of product reformulation, the advertiser contended that these high caloric results were partly due to manufacturing anomalies in either or both of Nutro's manufacturing plants. Specifically, explained the advertiser, certain employees at its production facilities were adding extra fat to the extruder to increase manufacturing through-put, and this practice affected Natural Choice Lite MEC values." So here you see Nutro rung up by Hill's and the various "explanations" they came up with as to why they were not following AAFCO standards. You see them do the testing for this challenge not with an independent lab, but in their own in house facilities. Note that Hill's used an independent lab. I would love to see what some independent labs could show us re: the problems being reported currently with Nutro.
