Good news! Hill's is going to use "natural ingredients"

From the release sent to us at work

"We took a food that already delivered precisely balanced nutrition, industry leading quality and great taste and will make it even better by adding the natural ingredients that pet parents want," said Hill's U.S. President Kostas Kontopanos.

....

Hills will reformulate Science Diet pet foods because some consumers were making product choices based primarily on set criteria for ingredients, rather than the overall promise of superior nutrition, backed by clinical research.

"By providing the key nutrients critical to maintaining optimal health, from ingredients that consumers prefer, our products, now even better, will deliver exactly what your pet needs: the benefits of completely and precisely balanced nutrition with a taste they will love."

The new Science Diet dog and cat food formulas will feature:
Natural ingredients
No artificial colors or flavors
Chicken or high quality protein as the first ingredient
No chicken by-product
Great taste, guaranteed

opcorn:

Well, this could get interesting...

I wonder how much they'll jack the prices up. It's already unreasonably expensive for **** food.

Hopefully enough that everyone stops buying it

I think that's the biggest thing that gets me about Science Diet.

I mean, yes, Ol'Roy is crap, but it's cheap as h*ll - it's expected that it's crap food. I'm sure most people that are buying it aren't like "Oh, this is the best food ever for my beloved companion." No, they're buying it because they don't care, and it's "just a dog".

With Science Diet, the vets are recommending it, the pet specialty stores are selling it, it has a high price tag - so people think that its one of the best dog foods, and they couldn't be more wrong. And that's what really bothers me - people really care about their dogs, they think they're feeding them a great food, and they're really feeding them junk.

I don't like the way they say this:

Hills will reformulate Science Diet pet foods because some consumers were making product choices based primarily on set criteria for ingredients, rather than the overall promise of superior nutrition, backed by clinical research.

However, I am happy with the change. I think the more dogs that are being fed even a little improved... the better! And since many people blindly listen to their vets and THINK they are feeding "the best" ... at least now it won't be so bad.

I also do not really feel Hills is the all-evil company that I used to think they were. Shoot nowadays they are one of the few with very very few recalls (they had voluntarily recalled cat food back in '07) and in their own manufacturing plant. Since they are dealing with RX foods, I doubt they're going to be putting things into the food that shouldn't be there so I trust the ingredients are really what they say they are. Sure they aren't the greatest, it's not a food I'd choose to feed when there are IMO better options and more price efficient options... but I'm finding it harder and harder to trust dog food companies anyways and at least Hills is *trying* even if it's kind of a joke (considering they swore for so long they had confidence in their ingredients).

According to Science Diet people are too freaking stupid to be able to tell what is good for their pets.

Obviously. Because I'm also too stupid to know how to eat healthy - I need an entire team of nutritionists and a specially formulated pelleted food in order to get complete and balanced nutrition for myself.

Sometimes I wish. Yep. Preferably in like Kix Cereal flavor. I could eat that everyday .

What makes me crazy about Hills is that they don't seem to care about ingredients as long as the nutrients are what they're supposed to be. I guess I'm just too holistic to believe that it doesn't matter where the protein in a food comes from as long as it's protein.

I do think it's funny that they are so transparent about doing things like putting out a grain free food and adding these "natural ingredients" not because they believe that they are better, but because that's what people want to buy.