Midwest Pet Foods owns and manufactures a number of brands under its own umbrella. We call these ‘Sub-Brands’ as they are children of a larger parent company, not individually owned and operated brands.

These brands include:

• Sportmix
• Sportmix Wholesomes
• Unrefined
• Earthborn Holistic
• Venture
• Canine X
• Ultimates
• Pro Pac

Midwest Pet Foods does not have a qualified nutritionist on staff. When asked about their formulation and manufacturing processes by the Pet Nutrition Alliance, they failed to respond.

Midwest Pet Foods has been cited multiple times by the FDA. Complaints have included poor sanitation and risk mitigation related to aflatoxins and salmonella.

Over 300 dogs have been made ill or were killed since 2021 from eating Midwest Pet Foods, and those are just the cases that were made known.

“We are issuing this corporate-wide warning letter because inspections of Midwestern Pet Foods, Inc.’s manufacturing plants revealed evidence of violations, which were shared across multiple plants and were associated with the illness or death of hundreds of pets who had eaten the company’s dry dog food.

FDA, 2021

You can read the 2021 FDA warning letter HERE.

It is unclear if Midwest has satisfactorily resolved these issues, as no follow up documents can be found. The biggest concern for pet parents should be that a company with this many brands would have such serious issues across multiple plants. This indicates a lack of dedicated safety practices and serious management-issues across the company as a whole, and is much more serious than a single recall of a product for an honest mistake, supplier issue, or oversight.