Last week, Supreme Petfoods Limited produced and circulated a document entitled ‘Campaign for Superior Quality Nutrition’. Supreme Petfoods Limited blends and packages smaller animal foods. Wagg was unaware of the preparation of this document and was not invited to comment on its contents prior to circulation. Wagg welcomes any industry wide discussion on smaller animal nutrition, conducted via the appropriate channels. As Supreme explicitly states in this document, however, its underlying rationale for publicly circulating such a document was commercially motivated.
Wagg believes the Supreme claims to be spurious; misleading and likely to cause unnecessary confusion for customers. We would however like to re-assure our customers as to the following:
1. Sugar
Obesity is linked to the total energy value of the food and the amount fed i.e. the daily calorific intake. Supreme effectively claims in its report that Wagg rabbit foods contain too much sugar. As most of our customers will appreciate, Sugar is one component of the overall calorific value of a rabbit’s daily diet. Based on Wagg’s published daily feeding guidelines for Optimum, which are clearly set out on all packaging, feeding Wagg Optimum generates a lower calorific value than the equivalent Supreme adult rabbit food i.e Science Selective (when comparing the average recommended daily feed). Wagg is therefore surprised that Supreme has decided to attack us on the issue of obesity.
Wagg Bunny Brunch is sold as a complementary food and, as such, comparisons are not relevant. For your information, levels of sugar in Wagg Rabbit foods are between 4 and 5%. Levels of sugar found in grass can be 20% and higher. In our view, none of the Wagg rabbit diets pose any problem in terms of obesity or teeth health. All the sugar in Wagg Rabbit foods is natural sugar from vegetables, grain, fruit and dried grass.
2. Fibre
We agree with Supreme that fibre is important to the rabbit’s digestive and gut health.
We are again surprised that Supreme believes Wagg’s products are somehow deficient in their provision of fibre. Wagg Bunny Brunch is formulated and carefully labelled as a complementary food and designed to be fed with an additional fibre source such as hay or grass. Wagg Optimum, designed and labelled as a complete food, has high levels of ADF and NDF (both forms of fibre), consistent with amounts recommended by experts. We note from the results quoted in the report that Wagg Optimum has the highest level of fermentable fibre of any of the foods evaluated in Supreme’s report, including its own. Additionally, on theWagg Optimum packaging we clearly advocate feeding some hay or grass with the food, to help wear teeth and prevent boredom.
3. Contamination
Wagg Foods has been manufacturing pet foods for some 23 years. From the very outset, we rejected the use of artificial colours or flavourants in all our pet foods. For the third year in a row, Wagg has secured Grade A BRC accreditation. We have appropriate accreditations for HACCP and Food & Feed Hygiene. We are also subjected to regular, unannounced, audits from the Grocers. Our factories are modern, well invested and clean places to work. We care about our customers and most definitely care about the quality of our foods and the impact they have on pets. We take pet nutrition exceedingly seriously.
Wagg does handle meat meal for use in production of dog foods. This meal is ‘fit for human consumption’ and is closely regulated by an EC directive covering the use of animal by products. Wagg has very extensive procedures in place to prevent contamination of our small animal foods by any animal matter. At Wagg, we do not, never have and never will intentionally add meat to our rabbit foods. We have asked to see the complete report prepared for Supreme by Campden BRI, in order that we can respond to the allegations of contamination. In any event, we are not aware of any regulatory breach.
We regret the confusion caused by Supreme. As stated above, Supreme’s unprovoked comments are commercially motivated. There are appropriate channels for dealing with these types of issues (e.g Trade associations like the PFMA) and Wagg will have no hesitation in working with the industry to improve standards, if appropriate.