Pet food maker Menu Foods Income Fund has voluntarily recalled additional products made with tainted wheat gluten at its Canadian plant, the company said.
The move was prompted by reports from the US Food and Drug Administration identifying the presence of the industrial chemical melamine in "cuts and gravy" style pet food produced in Menu Foods' Mississauga, Ontario, facility.
Menu Foods said it "undertook an accounting of all recalled wheat gluten supplied by ChemNutra Inc. to Menu Foods in the United States".
Based on that review, Menu Foods said it identified a "single interplant transfer" of the wheat gluten, shipped from Menu Foods' plant in Emporia, Kansas, to its plant in Mississauga. This wheat gluten was subsequently used in the production of pet food in December 2006 and January 2007, which is now being recalled.
"Menu Foods transfers ingredients among its four plants," company spokesman Sam Bornstein wrote in an e-mail. "The adulterated wheat gluten was moved during one such transfer."
Menu Foods' recall list was originally announced on March 16. It was updated late last week to cover foods produced between November 8 to March 6.
The latest update - the first to involve its Ontario plant - comes amid news that the the chief financial officer of Menu Foods Income Fund sold nearly half his units in the pet food maker less than three weeks before it announced its massive product recall, according to insider trading reports.
The reports show that Mark Wiens sold 14,000 units for C$102,900 on February 26 and February 27. As of Monday's close of C$4.46, the units would be worth C$62,440.
After the sale, Wiens owned 17,193 units and had options to buy 101,812, the trading reports show.
On March 16, the pet food maker recalled 60 million containers of "cuts and gravy" style pet food amid reports of pet deaths due to contamination.
The wet pet food was sold under various brands including Procter & Gamble Co.'s Iams and Eukanuba, as well as store brands sold at Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Safeway Inc.
The FDA had identified melamine in wheat gluten it said was shipped by Chinese company Xuzhou Anying Biologic Technology Development Co. to ChemNutra, based in Las Vegas. ChemNutra then sold the ingredient to Menu Foods and a few other companies that have since recalled pet products.
Since the recall, officials have pegged the death toll at at least 14 dogs and cats, though there has been speculation that thousands of animals may have been sickened or killed by tainted pet food.
Menu Foods' president and chief executive, Paul Henderson, said at a press conference late last month that the company had stopped using the Chinese supplier of wheat gluten on March 6.
Units of Menu Foods were down 16 Canadian cents, or 3.6 per cent, at C$4.30 on the Toronto Stock Exchange.
Further information on recalled Menu Foods products can be found at www.menufoods.com/recall/index.html.