First, for pity's sake, don't say 'when will these recalls end?!'. This drives me crazy. It's food manufacturing, and as long as there are human beings who make mistakes and organic materials that grow bacteria, there will be recalls.

I manage a small feed/pet supply store. The couple who founded my store also founded Natura Pet Foods, and to this day those foods are our bread and butter.

A few weeks ago, they had a small recall. Salmonella found in one bag of cat food, and they decided to pull everything from that production period. Not good, but not a big deal. We pulled a dozen or so affected bags and sent them back. A few days later, a second wave of recalls...several dozen bags of food pulled. Hmm, we were out of a few good things, but again, we could cope.

This morning, I went to our 8:30am meeting and we griped about how slowly Natura was getting us restocked.

I checked my fax machine at 10:00, and found a third wave of recall. We had to pull EVERY. SINGLE. BAG. of dry dog and cat food and treats from our five best selling pet foods. Even though salmonella in pet food is REALLY not a huge deal, people are SPAZZING OUT. We literally have 1 1/2 aisles of empty shelves.

I made up a poster with a list of high quality foods that would be effective substitutes for the affected brands, but people love their pets like family and are VERY upset by the entire thing...and many of them are taking it out on my staff and me. I stopped by one of my other favorite local pet stores on the way home today, and the owner and I traded whines and consolation for awhile.

This weekend is going to be a NIGHTMARE. By a happy coincidence, I tweaked the schedule this week so that myself and both of my assistant managers have one weekend day off. If I can survive tomorrow, I've got two days to recover. What a mess.

On a related note: if anyone here feeds Innova, EVO, California Natural, Healthwise, or Karma dry dog/cat/ferret food/treats, stop and return the bag. Or contact Natura for a refund.

Also be kind to the folks at the pet store, they're NOT having a good weekend!