Nutro Products
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| Nutro Products, Inc | |
|---|---|
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| Type | Private |
| Founded | |
| Headquarters | Industry, California, USA |
| Industry | Pet food |
| Products | Dog and cat food |
| Owner | Mars, Incorporated |
| Website | http://www.nutroproducts.com/ |
Nutro Products, Inc. is the developer and manufacturer of the Nutro brands of dog and cat food, located in Industry, California, USA. The company CEO is Jerry Sicherman. The company was acquired by Mars, Incorporated in 2007.[1]
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[edit] History
John Saleen purchased a dog food company from a British businessman in 1926 and renamed the company to Nutro Products. Moving to southern California, they were a family run business with products only available locally until the company was bought in 1976 and expanded its market. Their products are now available in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Europe.
In 1985, with the help of Dr. Sharon Machlik, they developed and introduced their MAX line of foods which made use of a chicken, lamb and rice formulation. Instead of traditional advertising, the company chose to produce large amounts of literature on the dietary needs of dogs and cats, with comparative information on their ingredients versus the ingredients of other brands, and provide this to their retailers, as a marketing tool.
Nutro has no intention of ever going public, believing that it would compromise the quality of their products., instead they make use of Pet Nutriton Specialists, or vendors to use a non aggressive in store sales method to gain more customers. Nutro does not hand out coupons freely as advertising. If a customer desires one Nutro will supply a coupon. [2]
[edit] Products
Nutro develops several different diet formulations, including canned, soft foods as well as bagged, dry kibbles. They have "Gourmet Classics" and "Natural Choice" lines for cats, and the "Nutro Max", "Natural Choice", and the "Ultra" lines for dogs. Each line has a selection of flavors and formulations for age range. The "Ultra" line was specifically created with the intent of creating a high-end holistic dog food.
Their dry foods are made through an extrusion process, and packaged with vitamin e as a natural preservative. [3]
In 2006, it was announced that Nutro's Adult Lamb and Rice formula had become the #1 lamb and rice dog food in America. This earned the company a blue ribbon on their food.
[edit] Criticisms
Nutro Products, Inc. has been criticized by the animal rights organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals for hiring subpar animal testing labs to test their products. The company has denied that it employs animal testing.[4] In March of 2007 Nutro was listed as a company affected by the Menu Foods recall [5]. Menu Foods has publicly admitted testing their food on animals resulting in the deaths of at least seven test animals. [6]
