One more reason to avoid fish based foods

or at least from Fancy Feast - class action lawsuit against Nestle / FF for their Thai partner accused of slave labor and human trafficking, young boys and men:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...-of-putting-fish-from-slave-labor-in-cat-food

 I didn't know FF was a part of Nestle... that makes me rethink a lot of things. And doing a quick google search, I see that Nestle owns Friskies and and a few Purina products...

I feel a little bit better that I don't feed the fish flavoured FF (that often). Sigh... I'm sure a LOT of the foods and products I consume were made unethically. It's hard to avoid all these things when we're surrounded by it all. I can only hope this exposure changes things for FF. 

That's horrible!  I hate thinking that our cats are getting fat off the backs of children and other people.  It makes me sick to the stomach.  I noticed that the Tiki Cat products are from Thailand.  Are they choosy about their sources???  How can we know????

Yet I don't know what to do about it.  If it weren't for stores like Walmart there would be many, many things we could not afford.  I can't afford to buy Made in Canada jeans.  I shop at Old Navy and even then I have to wait for their sales.  Even then, good luck finding something 100% ethically made.  The dry food I buy is labeled as made in Canada but some of their ingredients come from other countries....unnamed.

I agree with the above, I just hope the exposure will force companies to change.

mingking said:

 

 Sigh... I'm sure a LOT of the foods and products I consume were made unethically. It's hard to avoid all these things when we're surrounded by it all. I can only hope this exposure changes things for FF. 

Click to expand...

I know .... how much of what we consume do we not know how it's made or who made it under what conditions.  Maybe this will help change this a bit, I would hope.  It seems to have been the case with other companies (non-pet food related), when there was media attention re: human rights abuses / exploitation.

PicklesPepper said:

 
That's horrible!  I hate thinking that our cats are getting fat off the backs of children and other people.  It makes me sick to the stomach.  I noticed that the Tiki Cat products are from Thailand.  Are they choosy about their sources???  How can we know????

Yet I don't know what to do about it.  If it weren't for stores like Walmart there would be many, many things we could not afford.  I can't afford to buy Made in Canada jeans.  I shop at Old Navy and even then I have to wait for their sales.  Even then, good luck finding something 100% ethically made.  The dry food I buy is labeled as made in Canada but some of their ingredients come from other countries....unnamed.

I agree with the above, I just hope the exposure will force companies to change.

Click to expand...

There are a few cat food products made in Thailand, different companies but it really depends on who is overseeing, for e.g., Weruva put out a statement that under no circumstances are they partnering with any Thai producer who engages in this sort of thing. Not sure about TC.  I know Natural Balance's Delectable Delights and Wellness are made in Thailand. I guess they will have to make a statement also to clarify who they are working with.

I was surprised b/c Thailand has strict controls but it depends on who is managing. For e.g., several years ago I used to work for NB. When we were trained about the Delectable Delights foods, that line went through a very different process than other NB foods - hand "crafted"  vs assembly line produced formulas, the workers wore masks so as not to breathe on the food and an FDA inspector(s) apparently to check the facilities every quarter. (And I had no idea that  US FDA inspector(s) could visit a foreign plant to inspect.)  So I felt very comfortable with this.

Again, it depends on who is managing or overseeing, in the case of FF they have a lemon as a partner.

That makes me feel a little better.  I know there is only so much control we have as individual consumers.  It's not like back in the day when almost everything was made locally.

Not really surprising to finally see an accusation like this.

The fishing industry in Thailand and perhaps other countries around there has long had issues with forced labor.

We have a variety of well-liked cat foods that come from Thailand, though.  Weruva has a direct statement about slave labor on their web site, stating that they monitor their fish sources for labor issues.  Tiki Cat has a lot of statements about their foods but nothing direct about the labor.  I don't know if the labor is a real issue in non-fish sources.  I think Fussie Cat is also produced in Thailand at this point.  And there may be others.

Purina=Nestle.  Nestle has owned Purina for some years now, looks like 2001.  I don't remember off the top of my head if they own other pet brands that do not fall under the Purina banner, but a great many pet food brands are owned by just a few large companies, with Mars being the other one that is big in both human and pet foods.  Friskies and Fancy Feast, although now carrying the Purina brand, were actually acquired by Nestle even earlier, in their 1985 acquisition of Carnation.  So Friskies and Fancy Feast have been Nestle products for 30 years!