The Importance of Transparency in Pet Food

The idea of the Council is that transparency is very important these days to Pet Lovers. People are tired of great-sounding slogans that are not backed up with reality. As a pet owner and veterinarian, I share my clients’ concerns and want to know what’s in the food we serve our pets. We also want to know how that food is made, which for many manufacturers is a well-guarded secret (at Champion, they have opened their doors to the Council members and disclosed the details about their food, the food ingredients and sourcing, and the manufacturing process.)

Transparency is more than a word or claim; it’s an act of openness and disclosure. Champion is walking the walk with the Council and allowing outside third parties to see and report on what and how they do what they do. They are doing this because people want confirmation and validation of what companies claim about their pet food.

The Transparency Council seeks to answer this decline in trust by truthfully reporting on what we see and hear. We go where the typical pet owner can’t go, and ask the tough questions the public wants answered but may not even think to ask.

As part of our mission to report on “everything you want and need to know about your pet’s food,” we are reporting on what’s involved in the entire food creation process:

• how the foods are made
• what's in the food
• how the food's ingredients are sourced
• whether the animals raised for the food have been humanely treated
• whether the farmers use sustainable and environmentally sound practices
• whether the product is highly processed
• how fresh the ingredients in the food are

The list goes on.

Unfortunately, until now in the pet food business, transparency has largely been absent beyond the assertions various brands make about what’s in the food. Pet Lovers are required to believe and trust what they’re being told often with no objective third-party reporting. This is increasingly difficult when trust is broken periodically through recalls and reports of occasional misrepresentation of ingredient quality by some pet food manufacturers.

As Transparency Council members, we know that our fellow Pet Lovers want to be assured they are feeding their four-legged family members the best food available. We care because we have connected the dots between quality of diet and quality of life. Food may be the ultimate expression of love between us and our beloved pets.

We are here to serve our fellow Pet Lovers.

As a leading holistic veterinarian whose practice depends upon natural health, beginning with healthy diet, people look to me for guidance on nutrition so I need to know as much as I can about pet food. The Transparency Council has provided insight that would be hard to secure anywhere else on pet food making, and not available from any other pet food manufacturer.