I just wrote to P&G too....I won't be holding my breath waiting for a response, but I feel better after having written it anyway.

No, you can never completely trust a business or corporation. We have enough examples where that's just nothing but trouble. I think you can have greater confidence in some, but "trust"? No, never.

this is a sad, sad time.

the entire brand will get wrecked within a couple years.

It's sickening.

I just picked up a fresh bag of EVO dry, and now I am thinking I might return it. I've also been thinking about their trustworthiness since I am sure this deal has been in the works for awhile.

Great letter Sherri.

I wrote Champion pet foods last night and had a reply waiting first thing this morning. I wanted to know if they would consider talking the chicken fat out of their lamb based "Grasslands" food and if they would consider making a very simple formulation without the glucosamine and all the fancy herbs and botanicals for all the sensitive/allergic/ IBD dogs out there. They do have the lamb and apple but it still has too much for Sammy I would guess. I flat out told them I was asking because I wouldn't be able to feed Healthwise or California Naturals anymore.

I'm just sick. Natura products were some of my keep on hand in case I forgot to thaw something staples as well. Plus Ziggy ate their cat foods. Unfrickingbelievable. I wrote them too, and I was less than civil.

Oh crap! I totally forgot I feed Evo cat!!! My cat's been the only easy pet to feed. CRAP. With all the issues with canning, does anyone have one they trust?

I don't have a cat so I haven't used their cat foods, but I've had good luck with Wellness and Eagle Pack Holistic canned foods for the dogs. Can you get either of them locally?

I can get Wellness but not Core. I hate feeding so much grains and veg to a cat.
My store doesn't carry Eagle Pack I could drive into Edmonton and stock up once she's settled on something.

Gosh, Clementine has been on innova since I got her 15 years ago. It seems so sad to have to switch my old cats food at this point.

YES! My little store will bring in Core cans for me if I am willing to buy a case at a time. Phew.I was not looking to drive an hour for cat food tyvm.

I'm so bummed.

I've been thinking about this more. I've been reading The Walmart Effect and how Walmart basically affects every aspect of retail to the point where it is almost impossible to survive on a large scale basis without compromising quality for cost, even if you don't supply Walmart. The few producers that have survived despite making a product Walmart sells do so by marketing themselves as upscale options. None of that is particularly earth-shattering news, I know, but it's worth considering, imo.

Maybe Natura simply had no other option. It was absolutely amazing what some companies had to do simply to survive, let alone make a profit. Many companies have gone bankrupt and their founders/CEOs left with almost nothing. It just makes me wonder if I should give Natura some benefit of the doubt and not immediately ascribe greed to the founder's motives. Natura markets itself as the better alternative that you can't get in Petcos and Walmarts, but people like us make up a small minority of pet owners, and even many of us are looking to cut costs (buying Flex instead of EVO in my case, for example). I wonder if they just *couldn't* survive.

Of course, I suspect many of us would rather see them fold completely than be gobbled up by P&G.

Well, that is what occurred to me, too, pretty much.

It's brutal, in the current economic landscape and the recession that isn't *really* over (even though the Wall Street firms are fine now, tyvm), trying to run a business and particularly that type of business. Costs of every ingredient are through the roof, due if nothing else to the price of oil and transport. Quality of ingredients is suspect and probably hard to guarantee. Manufacturing is probably not an easy thing. It's got to be a whole lot of no fun trying to keep that business going. I don't blame them at all for selling it, when I consider all of that. And the only buyers are the Big Corporate types, so it wasn't like they could sell it to Fromm or Stella & Chewy's ...

If we could see their books and their debt load, we might not be so quick to assume that greed was behind this.

It was horrible for my friend to close her dog bakery after 10 years, and to file for business bankruptcy; if she had access to credit, she would have been okay. But little businesses don't have that luxury in this day and age of Goldman and Walmart and corporate strangleholds on pretty much everything. Maybe Natura was in a pinch too.

According to the letter sent to distributors, the owners are in their 70s and want to retire. It makes sense that they'd want to sell, but OMG... to sell to the Devil... *sigh*

What bothered me most, and I think that came through in my comment about what I e-mailed, is the disingenousness of Rademakers's statement that P&G "will honor" their commitment. Nobody who works in manufacturing of goods can possibly believe that. Maybe it's not good marketing or business, but I'd rather him say, "Look, we gave it our best shot but we just can't/don't want to do it anymore." But to flat out lie to your customers is just wrong.

Indepencent pet food manufacturers have been selling out to bigger corporations for many decades. Hill's, Iams/Eukanuba, Waltham, Royal Canin, Nutro, Purina, Nature's Recipe, and so on.

In the case of Natura, I really don't think it's a question of survival, especially for a company that was doing so well that it was contemplating buying or building its own canning facility, and launched a program to educate vets and vet students.

Natura withdrew from the European market some years ago over certain required documentation that they felt was too expensive to continue. I wonder if this development is aimed at taking the brands pretty much global, like Iams and Euk.

Meh now that they're P&G, I wonder how long it will be before they're available at your local Shoprite. How long you guys figure until the formula changes start coming?

Of course, that wasn't my point. My point was that even those who recognize the value of a quality product are still looking for the best balance of quality and cost, even with a non-Petco/Walmart product. Money is an object for most.

Again, I'm just guessing here, but how recent were those things? Because the economic downturn that started in late 2008 may have impacted them enormously.

The trademark registration for the service mark "Natura Vet" was filed in 2009 and registered in 2/10, I know that much.

The program is implemented by about half of the vet schools in the US and it seemed fairly established in the schools that have it, as far as I've heard.

I picked up a few cases of Evo cans today and when the store owner was surprised at how much more than usual I was buying I mentioned that I was stocking up before the sale to P&G. He said that he's had a lot of customers express concern already and he's looking for something to replace it. He doesn't have much faith that the quality will be good beyond maybe the end of this year at most.

I was actually surprised that so many people were aware. I'm glad that customers are speaking up and he's looking for alternatives.

That's great that people are aware. I know so few dogfoodies IRL.
I haven't fed any canned in a long time (except the cat). Evo doesn't agree with my dogs fand there seemed to be so much concern about quality control. I fed Evangers for a long time and Tripett but since those went by the wayside I've got nuthin. I considered the wellness cans but they are priced so high here it's cheaper for me to just buy real meat.

I went to a new pet store the other day and the woman who owns it is a nutritionist (I thought she was just very knowledgeable until I saw her certification on the wall) and super knowledgeable about everything she sells. She said they have even tasted most of it since they only sell the human grade stuff for the most part. When someone came in to buy Evo, she warned the person to start considering other foods for when the deal goes through. I am glad she is telling her customers about the impending sale.

I was telling her to open a store closer to me (same city... Virginia Beach) and she said people ask all the time. However, she has people come from NC and even Florida to get food from her. She said the Florida woman flies her jet here once a month to get food... craziness... not like there's not foods in Florida! I guess they trust her.