Pet Food Recalls 2025-2026: Every Major Recall and How to Protect Your Pet
A complete tracker of pet food recalls in 2025 and 2026 — specific brands, lot numbers, what went wrong, and exactly how to check if your pet's food is affected.
TL;DR
How do I check if my pet's food is recalled?
Go to the FDA's pet food recall page at fda.gov/animal-veterinary/safety-health/recalls-withdrawals. Search by brand name. Then check the lot number on your bag or can — it's usually printed on the bottom or back. A recall almost never covers an entire brand; it targets specific lot numbers from specific production runs.
I check my cats' food after every recall announcement
I own four cats. When the FDA posted the Darwin's Natural Pet Products recall in February 2025 for Salmonella contamination, I wasn't feeding that brand — but I spent the next hour photographing lot numbers on every bag and can in my pantry anyway. Because here's the thing: recalls don't announce themselves. They show up quietly on a government website, and unless you're actively looking, you miss them.
That experience turned me into someone who checks the FDA recall database monthly. It takes about 90 seconds. And based on how 2025 has gone, those 90 seconds are some of the most important time you can spend on your pet's health.
15+
Pet food and treat recalls issued by the FDA in 2025 alone — affecting kibble, wet food, raw food, and treats across dozens of brands
The major recalls: 2025-2026
Here's every significant pet food recall from 2025 into early 2026, with the details you actually need: what brand, what happened, which products, and what to do.
Salmonella recalls — the dominant pattern
Salmonella has been the single biggest driver of pet food recalls in 2025. It can infect your pet and you — humans handling contaminated pet food are at risk too.
Darwin's Natural Pet Products — Feb 2025
What: Raw frozen dog and cat food
Why: Salmonella contamination confirmed through FDA sampling
Products: Multiple raw frozen formulas distributed nationwide
Action: Stop feeding immediately. Discard or return for refund. Wash hands and any surfaces that contacted the product.
Source: FDA Recall Notice
Answers Pet Food — March 2025
What: Raw frozen dog food (Detailed Turkey formula)
Why: Salmonella detected during routine FDA testing
Products: Specific lot numbers of Detailed Turkey for Dogs
Action: Do not feed. Return to place of purchase.
Source: FDA Recall Notice
Gold Star Distribution — Early 2025
What: Multiple brands of dog and cat food and treats
Why: Salmonella detected through FDA sampling program
Products: Multiple brands distributed across several states — check FDA listing for specific lot numbers
Action: Discard affected products. Monitor pets for vomiting, diarrhea, lethargy.
Source: FDA Recall Notice
Viva Raw — 2025
What: Raw frozen pet food
Why: Listeria monocytogenes contamination
Products: Multiple raw frozen formulas
Action: Dispose of product. Listeria is particularly dangerous for immunocompromised individuals handling the food.
Source: FDA Recall Notice
Nutrient imbalances — the silent danger
These are scarier than pathogen recalls because the food looks, smells, and tastes normal. Your pet eats it willingly. The damage builds over weeks.
Quest Cat Food — Thiamine (Vitamin B1) Deficiency — 2025
What: Select lots of wet cat food
Why: Insufficient thiamine levels — identified through consumer complaints and lab testing
Products: Specific lot numbers of wet cat food formulas
Risk: Thiamine deficiency in cats causes neurological damage: loss of coordination, head tilt, seizures, death if untreated
Action: Stop feeding immediately. If your cat shows any neurological symptoms, get to a vet urgently — thiamine deficiency is reversible if caught early.
Source: FDA Recall Notice
Vitamin D Excess — Multiple Brands — 2025
What: Dry dog food from at least two separate manufacturers
Why: Excessive Vitamin D levels due to formulation or supplier error
Products: Specific lot numbers — check FDA for affected brands and lots
Risk: Vitamin D toxicity causes elevated calcium, kidney damage, and potentially kidney failure. Symptoms: excessive thirst, drooling, weight loss, vomiting.
Action: Stop feeding. Vet blood work recommended if fed for more than a few days.
Source: FDA Recall Notice
Foreign objects and manufacturing failures
Metal and plastic fragment recalls — Throughout 2025
What: Multiple brands of kibble and wet food
Why: Metal fragments from worn equipment, plastic pieces from packaging line failures
Products: Various — typically isolated to specific production runs
Risk: Oral injury, choking, intestinal damage
Action: If you find foreign material in pet food, stop feeding, save the evidence, report to FDA.
Source: FDA Safety Reporting Portal
Summary table: 2025-2026 recalls at a glance
| Date | Brand/Product | Reason | Pet Type | Action |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Feb 2025 | Darwin's Natural Pet Products | Salmonella | Dogs & Cats | Discard/return |
| Mar 2025 | Answers Pet Food (Turkey) | Salmonella | Dogs | Return to retailer |
| Early 2025 | Gold Star Distribution (multi-brand) | Salmonella | Dogs & Cats | Discard affected lots |
| 2025 | Viva Raw | Listeria monocytogenes | Dogs & Cats | Dispose immediately |
| 2025 | Quest Cat Food (wet) | Thiamine deficiency | Cats | Stop feeding; vet if symptoms |
| 2025 | Multiple brands (dry dog food) | Excess Vitamin D | Dogs | Stop feeding; blood work |
| Throughout 2025 | Various manufacturers | Metal/plastic fragments | Dogs & Cats | Stop feeding; report to FDA |
Why recalls keep happening
Pet food recalls fall into three buckets, and understanding them helps you assess risk.
Pathogen contamination
Salmonella, Listeria, and E. coli enter through raw ingredient sourcing, processing, packaging, or storage. Raw pet food carries elevated risk because manufacturing skips the high-temperature kill step used for kibble. According to the FDA's guidance on raw pet food, raw diets are significantly more likely to contain harmful bacteria than conventional pet food.
Formulation errors
Pet food labeled "complete and balanced" must meet AAFCO nutrient profiles. Mixing mistakes, ingredient substitution, or supplier inconsistencies produce dangerously high or low nutrient levels. Thiamine deficiency develops over weeks. Vitamin D toxicity causes kidney damage. The food appears normal the entire time.
Supply chain failures
The pet food industry runs on shared manufacturing. A single contaminated ingredient batch can affect dozens of brands produced in the same facility. Foreign object contamination — metal fragments, broken gaskets, plastic shards — is almost always an equipment failure that slipped past quality control.
$38.4 billion
U.S. pet food industry revenue in 2024 — a massive supply chain where one contaminated ingredient source can ripple across dozens of brands
How to check your pet's food: step-by-step
Most pet owners never check the recall database. Here's exactly how to do it.
Step 1: Get your product details
Grab the bag, can, or container. You need three things:
- Brand and exact product name (not just "Purina" — which specific formula)
- Lot number — usually printed on the bottom of the bag or stamped on the can. It's a string of numbers and letters.
- Best-by or expiration date
Pro move: photograph every new bag
When you open a new bag or case of pet food, take a quick photo of the lot number and best-by date. Takes 5 seconds. If a recall drops three weeks later, you'll have the information without digging through recycling.
Step 2: Search the FDA recall database
Go to the FDA Animal & Veterinary Recalls page. You can search by:
- Brand name
- Date range
- Type of problem (contamination, nutrient issue, foreign object)
The page lists every active recall with the specific lot numbers and products affected.
Step 3: Check the manufacturer's website
When a recall is issued, the manufacturer is required to publish details on their site, usually including a lot number lookup tool. Search "[brand name] recall 2025" and you'll find it.
Step 4: Set up alerts so you never have to remember
How to set up FDA recall alerts
- Go to FDA Recalls, Market Withdrawals & Safety Alerts
- Scroll to the bottom and look for the email subscription option, or use the GovDelivery signup for FDA alerts
- Select "Animal & Veterinary" under topic preferences
- The AVMA also maintains a recall alert page
You'll get an email every time a new pet food recall is posted. Free, takes 2 minutes to set up, runs in the background forever.
Warning signs your pet ate recalled food
Symptoms depend on the type of contamination. Here's what to watch for.
Salmonella or bacterial contamination
- Vomiting (sudden onset)
- Diarrhea (sometimes bloody)
- Fever or lethargy
- Loss of appetite
- Excessive drooling
Symptoms typically appear within 12-72 hours of ingestion. Humans handling contaminated food can also get sick — wash hands thoroughly after handling any pet food.
Thiamine deficiency (primarily cats)
- Loss of appetite progressing over days to weeks
- Vomiting
- Walking unsteadily, loss of coordination
- Head tilt or circling
- Seizures in advanced cases
This one is insidious. Symptoms develop gradually over weeks of eating deficient food. If your cat's wet food was recalled for thiamine issues, get blood work done even if symptoms seem mild.
Vitamin D toxicity
- Excessive thirst and urination
- Drooling
- Weight loss
- Vomiting
- Decreased appetite
Elevated Vitamin D causes calcium buildup that damages kidneys. Routine blood work catches kidney changes before clinical symptoms appear — one more reason annual vet visits matter.
If you suspect your pet ate recalled food
- Stop feeding the product immediately — set it aside, don't throw it away yet. You may need the packaging and a food sample.
- Call your vet with the product name, lot number, how long your pet has been eating it, and any symptoms.
- Report to the FDA through the Safety Reporting Portal or call your state's FDA Consumer Complaint Coordinator. Your report helps identify problems and protect other pets.
- Contact the manufacturer — most will refund and may request remaining product for investigation.
- Document everything — receipts, packaging photos, vet records, communication with the manufacturer.
Choosing safer brands (no brand is immune)
No brand — premium, budget, raw, kibble — is immune from recalls. But some practices reduce risk.
Brands that own their manufacturing have more quality control than those using co-manufacturers. Not a guarantee, but it eliminates one layer of supply chain risk.
Check for AAFCO feeding trial statements. A label saying "animal feeding tests using AAFCO procedures substantiate this food provides complete and balanced nutrition" means the food was actually tested. That's a higher standard than "formulated to meet AAFCO profiles," which means it hits targets on paper but wasn't feeding-trial tested.
Investigate sourcing transparency. Brands that publicly disclose where their ingredients come from tend to have fewer issues. If a company can't tell you where its protein is sourced, that's worth weighing.
Check recall history. A single recall doesn't condemn a brand — it may mean their testing caught a problem before pets got sick. But repeated recalls across different product lines suggest systemic quality control failures. The FDA recall database lets you search any brand's history.
Be especially careful with raw food. If you choose raw, look for brands using High Pressure Processing (HPP) to reduce pathogen load. Handle raw pet food with the same care you'd use for raw chicken in your own kitchen. The FDA's position is that raw pet food carries meaningfully higher contamination risk.
If your pet has food allergy symptoms, switching brands adds another layer of complexity — you're balancing recall safety with allergen avoidance. Keep a log of what you feed and any reactions, so your vet has clear data to work with.
A 90-second monthly habit that could save your pet's life
Here's what I do on the first of every month, and what I'd recommend:
- Open the FDA recall page
- Scan for any recalls in the past 30 days
- Cross-reference against whatever I'm currently feeding my four cats
- Check the AVMA recall page for anything the FDA page missed
Takes 90 seconds. I've never found a match — but the one time I do, those 90 seconds will be the most valuable minute and a half I've spent all month.
The goal isn't paranoia. The vast majority of pet food is safe. The goal is to close the gap between a recall being announced and you finding out about it. In 2025, with 15+ recalls already on the books, that gap matters more than ever.
Whether you're choosing what human foods are safe for your dog or evaluating a commercial diet, staying informed is the baseline. Everything else — the vet visits, the label reading, the brand research — builds on top of that.
