Pet food
and bins
, impunity reigns supreme. L’Antitrust believed the defense arguments of Affinity Petcare SA, in reply to our first complaint about branded products ‘Last‘. We therefore insist on proposing to the Competition Authority (
AGCM
) the opportunity to reconsider the matter, with a special petition for reconsideration.
Pet food
, GIFT’s survey
Great Italian Food Trade continues its survey of pet foods. A necessary premise to induce the relevant authorities and the operators themselves to bring order to a market still plagued by countless frauds and deceptions. This is an unacceptable scenario in a country like ours, second only to Hungary in Europe for the prevalence of pets, which are present in 52 percent of homes. (1)
5 billion euros is the value of the Italian pet food and pet items market (2017 data, growing). There are 7.5 million cats, 7 million dogs, plus 13 million birds, 1.8 hamsters and rabbits, and 1.5 fish in Italy. With significant outlay from consumers, who spend an average of €371 per year to feed, care for and treat their four-legged affections.
After publishing
news of the blatant fraud on ‘single-protein’ foods,
revealed by the University of Padua
without disclosing the brands and names of the industries involved, our website GIFT (Great Italian Food Trade) reported to the Antitrust Authority the
feed marketed by Affinity
Petcare SA, under the brand name ‘Ultima,’ and those by Italian leader Monge
.
Our ‘
meticulous examination’
of labels, as recognized by Monge itself, has produced some initial effects. The president of the Monge Group acknowledged the merits of our criticism, and also promised to take immediate action to bring its labels in line with current regulations.
Affinity feeds, our first report to the Antitrust Authority.
Affinity Petcare SA is a Spanish giant, €305 million in sales, ranked seventh on a global scale in pet food production. Its ‘Ultima‘ brand products are ubiquitous, in Italy. And yet-in our humble opinion-they have serious irregularities. With particular regard to suggestive graphic representations of ingredients not even present (e.g., chicken legs) or used in ‘homeopathic’ doses (e.g., red currants, 0.01%!). As well as related nutritional and health ‘claims‘.
Great Italian Food Trade therefore approached the Antitrust Authority on 8/22/18, asking it to shed light on the aforementioned business practices involving 28 products for dogs and cats. Also inviting some groups from the large-scale retail trade
(Famila
, Iper Montebello, Coop Italia, PAM Panorama, Esselunga, Auchan and Carrefour) to take action in verifying the legitimacy of the labels of
pet food
present on their shelves. Informing the relevant health authorities of this as well.
‘
Ultima’, Affinity Petcare SA’s defenses.
Affinity Petcare SA-instead of acknowledging, at the very least, the excesses of its marketing with respect to the due criteria of transparency in consumer information-has claimed that its labels are fully in order. Alleging substantial identity between the chicken legs depicted and the ‘dehydrated poultry protein’ instead used. And the ‘significance’ of plant ingredients, as they are dehydrated at low temperatures that would preserve their characteristics (except for omitting to indicate the scorching temperatures to which the products are subjected in the subsequent extrusion process). All is well with the Antitrust Authority, which filed on 6.2.19.
Evidently, the Ministry of Health’s repeatedly expressed recommendations on the inadmissibility of using images-in labels and advertisements-that are not responsive to or are otherwise disproportionate to the actual composition of the feed were of no avail. As well as to the nature and physical state of the ingredients used. Otherwise it is chaos, as precisely the reality of many and too many outlaw shelf labels still going unpunished.
‘
Last’, our petition for review
The FEDIAF(the European Pet Food Industry Association) Code, which incorporates the European framework to be applied to pet food labeling, expressly prohibits the use of images that emphasize the presence of an ingredient where it is present in a form other than depicted. (2) In this respect, representations of fresh chicken, fruits and vegetables are therefore irregular where they are concentrated or freeze-dried ingredients.
Further critical issues pertain to the ‘claim‘ nutritional and health-related ‘ that are associated with the fruits and vegetables contained in the products, ‘natural sources of vitamins, minerals and antioxidants’. It is indeed unbelievable that homeopathic doses of fruits and vegetables in products subjected to extrusion (a process that, according to industrial practices, is carried out at temperatures close to 200° C) can provide the claimed micronutrients and phytocomplexes. Easier to believe that the related synthetic chemicals, certainly not ‘natural‘, were added retrospectively in the finished products.
Legality and fairness are the beacons that should illuminate the long dark night of pet food in Italy. ConsumAtors have the right to receive truthful and objective news about the real characteristics of pet foods offered on the shelf. But this is not the case, and the authorities persist as if nothing is wrong. We therefore hope to receive a signal of attention, for the restoration of legality.
Dario Dongo
Notes
(1) Cf. Censis, report ‘The social value of the veterinary doctor,’ presented in Rome on 3/29/19
(2) See reg. EC 767/09
Dario Dongo, lawyer and journalist, PhD in international food law, founder of WIISE (FARE - GIFT - Food Times) and Égalité.
