This article was in the Ottawa Citizen on Sunday.  Hopefully this problem
will be resolved soon.

Deb

Mad cow ban blocks pet foods from U.S.
Ottawa stores have just a few weeks' supply left
 
Kris Westwood and Dan Lazin
The Ottawa Citizen; With files The Edmonton Journal

January 4, 2004

If Canadian officials don't open the border to U.S.-manufactured pet food
within the next few weeks, "there will be no pet food in Canada,"
retailers are warning.

Fears the food might have come in contact with mad cow-infected meat in
factories prompted the Canadian Food Inspection Agency on Dec. 24 to
forbid pet foods made from beef, as well as pork, fish, poultry and
vegetarian products. The move is part of a larger ban on imports of beef
products after a case of mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform
encephalopathy, was found in the U.S. on Dec. 23.

Although there are more than a dozen pet food manufacturers in Canada,
suppliers say between half and three-quarters of the country's pet food
is imported.

"There are some foods we can't do without -- we'll be in big trouble if
we run out," said Shannon Brunet, a veterinary nutritional adviser at the
Alta Vista Animal Hospital on Bank Street.

Most medical pet foods, which are used to treat anything from intestinal
problems to kidney failure, are manufactured in the U.S. "We thought we'd
be OK for at least three weeks," Ms. Brunet said. "But it depends on the
clients and whether they try to stock up."

Ms. Brunet said the animal hospital will have to begin restricting how
much food clients can buy because the warehouse it orders from has just
one month's supply for all of Canada.

Concerns about hoarding have led Ontario's Veterinary Purchasing Company,
Canada's largest supplier to veterinary clinics, to restrict Ontario vets
to buying a week's supply of food at a time, based on their past
purchasing history.

"In two months, I will guarantee you there will be no pet food in Canada
unless something changes," said company general manager Brendan Ginty.

Mr. Ginty said the situation will only become worse if people try to
hoard food. "If everybody bought normally, we may be able to sneak
through this," he said.

Gourmet foods will also be hit particularly hard.

"The majority of the premium and super premium products come from the
States," said Tri-Star Products owner Doug Boucher, whose Manotick-based
company imports gourmet Fromm products. "Then you get into the specialty
products -- all of them are made in the States."

And while these top-end products make up just two per cent of pet food
sales, all pet foods are affected. "There are eight million dogs in
Ontario, and up to two-thirds are eating products made in the States,"
Mr. Boucher said.

With just four weeks' supply in stock, Mr. Boucher is worried he may have
to shut his company when it runs out.

"Pretty soon people are going to be screaming, 'What am I going to feed
my pets?'" he said. "My hands are tied -- in fact, they're cut off."

Brands affected by the ban include Hill's Science Diet, IAMS and Meow
Mix. Food made by Canadian companies such as Shur-Gain and in plants in
Canada, such as Purina, will not be affected unless the raw materials
come from across the border. The Canadian Medi-Cal medical pet food brand
should also be unaffected.

Still, not all retailers are losing sleep over the ban.

"We've stocked up on product to insulate us," said Kelvin Stanke, the
owner of Critter Jungle on Carling Avenue, who says his four-week supply
should be enough. "I think there's economic pressure to figure this out.
I think it's all political. I think it's a little 'tit-for-tat' stuff."

And if the ban lasts longer?

"Ask me in four weeks," Mr. Stanke said. "If nothing's changed, maybe the
answer will be a little different."

Although Ritchie's Feed and Seed only sells Canadian-made Purina food, it
is reacting to the ban by stocking up in anticipation of increased
demand.

"We're preparing for this, definitely," said store manager Darrell
Kekanovich, who explained four of his staff were dedicated to ordering
more stock. "They dove on it right away."

One option U.S. pet food makers are exploring is switching production to
Canadian plants, something Petsmart hopes will keep their supplies
flowing.

"We're working really closely right now with our suppliers to locate
supply in Canada," said company spokeswoman Jennifer Pflugfelder. "Next
week we'll have some more information coming in."

In the meantime, Petsmart still has a stockpile at its Canadian
warehouses to draw on.

"We do have some shipments going to stores in Canada," Ms. Pflugfelder
said.

But Mr. Boucher doesn't think that will be enough if the ban continues in
the long term.

"From what I understand, there's not enough Canadian capacity to produce
enough food to feed all the pets in Canada," he said. "It's not just that
we don't have the production capacity. We don't have the raw materials as
well."

CFIA feed expert Sergio Tolusso said it's unlikely that the border will
stay completely closed for more than a couple of months, but he couldn't
be more precise.

"The measures we've put into place are really only viewed as a temporary
restriction at this point," said the expert, Sergio Tolusso, feed program
coordinator for the CFIA.

He said it would be "a few days or weeks at worst" before Canadian
officials complete a list of requirements that American pet food plants
would have to meet before their food could come over the border once
more.

He did not know, however, how long it would be before inspections of the
U.S. plants were actually completed. That won't be known until the CFIA
talks to the U.S. government about the problem next week.

? The Ottawa Citizen 2004