Acana Changes Food Ingredients!

[Shotzi21]

Acana dog food was backed on delivery up because they have changed their ingredients. They have no notice on the new bags, such as new and improved, etc. They have changed NUMEROUS ingredients and thought they would just slip it by. I checked the ingredients when their new shipment arrived. 2 petshops that I deal with had no idea of this change and they are both very upset also. I am guessing because Orijen is the same company, they probably changed ingredients also, but I haven't compared as I do not have an old bag. Also, their website lists the old ingredients which is very decieving business practices if you ask me! I was using Acana grasslands but also know for a fact theat Acana Pacifica changed also as I have a bag from a month and a half ago. It is like they made completely different foods. Beware to anyone who's dogs may have a problem with certain ingredients!

[Scottishlabs]

Oh! We feed our 2 Acana Prairie Harvest. Thanks for the info on changed ingredients, I'll take a look at the new bag we just had delivered.....Hopefully we wont have any upset tummy's

[Rex_Oliver]

Oh great, I just nicely switched to Acana puppy & junior. Thanks for the info.

[LuckyLuna]

I have used Acana Prairie Harvest in my dogs' kibble rotation with good success; so I am concerned about changes. I heard somewhere else that there is now "duck" in the Prairie Harvest formula. Is that true? I like it when a formula has a couple different proteins like chicken and turkey, but I start getting a little concerned with formulas that have more than 5 different meat proteins like TOTW High Prairie and Orijen's new Red Meat.

[Shotzi21]

I know they put duck in the grasslands. They changed about 6-10 ingredients in their grasslands and their pacifica. I did not buy either new bag, but cross referenced at the petshop. Both now have numerous ingredients in them that mine cannot eat. I have never seen a company change so many ingredients at once. I am truly amazed. There is no doubt in my mind that orijen also changed.....I would be surprised if they didn't. Lousy, lousy company that tries to pull a fast one like they did. Shame on Champion. If dogs don't have reactions....there is no doubt that they will get the runs from such an abrupt change. When you guys check the new bags.....you will be shocked, just as I was.

[Tasha13]

Wow...thats crazy.....I thought they were suppose to be "PET FOOD OF THE YEAR" What ingredients did they or did they not put in......I still want to put Tater on the Acana Sport and agility formula.

[Shotzi21]

Go to their site and copy the ingredients (they still have the old ingredients listed). Take it to the petshop and cross reference it with the food they have.....but make sure the bags they have are from the shipment after the backup. I can't tell you what they added as I did not buy any. I can tell you you that it is alot of new ingredients.
In the grasslands....sweet potatoes were changed to potatoes, duck was added, deboned lamb was changed to lamb meal, and they used to use pike as the fish which was changed to some fish meal...I forget....and a couple other things were changed. Oh.....one really important thing....their bags used to say ethoxyquin-free, and now they don't. In case you don't know....ethoxyquin is a preservative used for fish meal that is linked to causing cancer. So now since they use a fish meal....when I called they told me they don't preserve with ethoxyquin, but the question is...who makes their fish meal????? Their fish meal supplier could preserve with it. I just don't like the whole situation with them.....it really rubbed me the wrong way....they are too sneaky for me. They obviously have no consideration for pet owners or pets to change so many ingredients and not let anyone know about it.

[Patty/Breeder]

I have heard the hold up on delivery is due to expantion in their processing plant. this comes from my supplier.

I think a bit more needs to be learned prior to jumping to a bunch of conclusions. The Orijen food was named Number 1 for 2009-2010 so I would not think they would be stupid enought to start using fish meal preserved with ethoxyquin (for one thing). They have been questioned in the past numerous times about their source of fish and preservatives and even have it on their web site.

I can't see them being stupid enough to suddenly go the wrong route in production and damaging their reputation that has been so good this far.

But hey, I could be wrong......................

I will look into all of this further with my supplier who I completely trust to get me the true answers.

BTW switching from deboned lamb to lamb meal is a plus. Meal has water removed, therefore there is more lamb in the food (especially if listed as one of the first 4 ingredients). Ingredients are listed by weight. protein with water in it weighs more than a protein "meal" with water removed.

When i learn something from my supplier I will post it. Not that that will change your mind but it may calm others down a bit.

[uplander]

I hate to say it...but there are only so many Fish in the Sea ...It is very possible that Natura's introducing a fish based EVO has affected the supply of fish....and they may have out leveraged Orijen...

This past two years saw a depletion of Lamb meal available for Pet Food manufacturers ...

With more companies using better ingredients it is only a matter of time for shortages and ingredient changes to take place.

[1LabsEnuf]

Actually, when I recently switched Emmett to Acana Adult Dog Food a few weeks ago, I noticed on the bag a big sticker that said "new formula coming soon" - it's on their website too. So the switch comes as no surprise to me and I knew to watch my quantity so that I can mix bags until we get the new formula. I'm in Canada, not sure if that makes a diff?

[ThorsMom]

I cross referenced with the bag of Pacifica I picked up a couple of days ago and the ingredients did indeed change, but nothing that is concerning from my perspective. In fact, it looks like the order of the ingredients moved around a bit and some of the ingredients that were in there aren't anymore, such as lobster shell and the Saskatchewan berries or whatever. But nothing was added that concerned me. It's still 33% protein but the fat content went up a bit, something like 15% to 18%.

I was told that one of the reasons for the delay is that there were problems with the labeling at the border, so perhaps they had to change the labeling to more easily cross borders.

[Woofie]

Shotzie - could *you* list all the ingredient changes? I'm curious, but have no access to Acana anymore to reference to...to me it's not a big major concern, cause I have to say, sooooo many companies have done this in the past, and it's really nothing new for any company to do.

Take a look at Canidae, they did the same thing; not only that though, but they also merged with another company without notifying the general public.

Truly this is the entire reason why pet owners have to stay on top of the game, it happens all the time. Naturapet products, is the only company I know of that's never done this.

Truthfully, by law, a company has 6 mnths before they HAVE to legally post changes of their ingredients; this is an issue I've seen for years.

fwiw, I honestly believe that *fish meal* is not the same as say *salmon meal or herring meal, etc. *Fish meal* is just that, an assortment of fish, most likely preserved with ethoxiquin.

Whether or not their food IS now produced with ethoxiquin, I can't say for sure and won't cause the only dry food I honestly have faith in is cal natural, and my dogs only eat it a few times a week.

I don't have faith in any of the companies.....they are all sneaky at some point.

But I agree with Patty, switching from deboned lamb to lamb meal is not a big major concern, neither is the addition of duck, unless your pup has an allergy to duck. Switching around the fish ingredients, unless it actually states *fish meal* rather then say *salmon meal* then I wouldn't be overly concerned either.

I don't care for the plain jane *potatoes* over the sweet potatoes, so I do understand that issue; but then again, IMHO, potatoes in grain-free foods are becoming the next *grain* issue in the normal foods....they are way too overused, and truthfully, regular potatoes aren't any healthier then say rice, oats, etc.

There are 2 excellent grain foods out now that don't contain potatoes, one is Natura's new fish EVO formula and Horizon Legend's formula, they both contain peas, no potatoes.

Again though, I'm not a huge fan of any food long-term that contains fish from any dog food manufactorer, cause you just never know what it's truly preserved with.

[GussyandHudson]

I was told by our pet store and saw a sticker on the bag that said "New formula coming soon". It looks to me like the changes are only improving the dog food and I don't think they are very major either. My two seem to do well on all of their dogs foods and I don't think a little change with affect them.

[LuckyLuna]

I think it is probably a wait-and-see to see how all the formula changes play out. Many may be rather minor. The one change (if it's true) that would bother me, as it does Woofie, would be the inclusion of "fish meal". In my book that falls in a similar department as "poultry meal or by-products" (no specific type named); plus it seems that fish meal is required to be treated with ethoxyquin at sea. Adding "fish meal" definitely seems to be a supply issue and/or a financial issue.

[lukes]

We had so many dogs doing well on grasslands, we hope the formula change doesn't cause to much of a problem.

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Luke's All Natural Pet Food
lukesallnatural.com