is alpo dog food discontinued 2022

Alpo Recall History and Pet Food Brand Info

Important Alpo recall information appears below.

Brand Name: AlpoRelated Brands: Purina Pro Plan, Purina Dog Chow, Friskies, Beneful, and Purina OneProduct Lines: Alpo Chop House, Alpo Gravy Cravers, Alpo Prime Classics, Alpo Prime Cuts, Alpo Come & Get It!, Alpo T-Bonz, Alpo Twist-ables, Alpo Variety SnapsCompany: Nestl Purina PetCare CompanyHeadquarters: 1 Checkerboard Square, St. Louis, MO 63164Website: https://www.purina.com/alpoPhone: 1-800-778-7462Email: [emailprotected]

Alpo Company Overview

If youre old enough, you might remember TV commercials where actor Lorne Greene would hold up a can of dog food and claim it was so good, hed feed it to his dogs. You may also remember the cartoon cat Garfield making an appearance in several commercials. Alpo was that brand.Alpo was founded in 1936 by Robert F. Hunsicker and has since been acquired by Nestl Purina PetCare. It is a budget line of pet food.Below, we share more information about the long history of Alpo including up-to-date recall information.

Alpo HistoryThe Allen Products Company Inc. had its humble beginnings in Robert F. Hunsickers garage in 1936, just a year after Hunsicker graduated college with an engineering degree. The Alpo name was a shortened form of Allen Products.The company sold $7,000 worth of canned dog food in its first year. The customer list began expanding to kennels and veterinarians in Eastern Pennsylvania and took off from there.In 1964, Liggett & Myers Tobacco Company bought Allen Products for $12 million. However, Allen Products/Alpo continued to operate as an independent subsidiary of the tobacco company.At the time of Hunsickers retirement in 1969, his company had become the largest manufacturer of all-meat pet foods in the United States.

All-Meat ClaimsFor years, Alpo had marketed itself as having 100% meat ingredients.But in the early 1970s, veterinarians began raising alarm bells. An all-meat diet, they said, was far from complete or balanced it could actually be harmful to pets.A study published in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association (JAVMA) in 1971 found that puppies fed an all-meat diet experienced a syndrome characterized by loose stools, pain, lameness, behavioral changes, loss of appetite, and even death. However, the pet food used in the study had not been fortified with vitamins and minerals, unlike most commercial pet foods.Even so, veterinarians are treating an increasing number of dogs for nutritional deficiencies resulting from the consumption of so-called all-meat products [because] so many dog owners have been led to believe that meat alone is suitable as a diet for dogs, according to an editorial published in 1970 in JAVMA.Allen Products, maker of Alpo, and its competitor Ralston Purina maintained, however, that their foods were completely safe.As part of an investigation into advertising claims, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in 1976 claimed that Alpo was fully aware of reports indicating there was some question whether an all-meat diet was truly beneficial and that it knew an all-meat formulation may have been harmful to some dogs. And yet, the FTC said, Alpo had continued to direct millions of dollars its entire [marketing] effort toward creating a belief that Alpo was good for dogs.Alpo began to phase out its all-meat-ingredients dog food. Instead of 100% Meat, consumers began to see phrases like Beef Flavored Dinner on packages and cans.

Alpo and Pillsbury Arent a Good MatchGrand Metropolitan PLC of Britain acquired Alpo Petfoods Inc. in 1980 and operated it as a subsidiary of its Pillsbury Company division.Pillsbury would later find that Alpo was not a strategic fit with its consumer foods portfolio, which included Pillsbury baked goods and other brands like Green Giant, Haagen-Dazs, and Totinos Pizza.Thats why it wasnt too much of a surprise when Grand Met announced a $510 million deal in 1994 to sell the Alpo unit. The buyer this time was Swiss food conglomerate Nestl SA, which meant Alpo would soon become integrated into Friskies Petcare of Glendale, California, a division of Nestl SA.Alpo is one of the most recognized consumer brands of dog food in the USA and will enhance Friskies presence in the dog food category, explained Joe Weller, then-CEO of Nestl USA.For a time, there was even a Friskies Alpo cat food. But now Friskies is a cat-exclusive brand, and Alpo is exclusively a dog food.

Alpo Joins the Purina FamilyIn 2001 came more change, when Friskies Petcare was combined with Ralston Purina Company in an $11 billion deal.The resulting company was called Nestl Purina PetCare, and it married the Friskies and Alpo brands withthe Purina lineof Dog Chow, Cat Chow, and Pro Plan pet foods.Nestl Purina PetCare has its North American headquarters in St. Louis, Missouri, where Ralston Purina was founded (as Purina Mills) in 1894.In 2020, Nestl Purina PetCare was the No. 2 pet food company in the world, with nearly $14 billion in annual revenue, according to data provided by Pet Food Industry.

Other Nestl Purina brands include:

Keeping Things Simple (And Affordable)Alpo has long carved out a niche as an economical, no-nonsense dog food.Even today, as consumer preferences have continued to navigate toward higher-quality, premium pet foods, Alpo insists on producing a simple, meaty product.Dogs dont yearn for things like quinoa or gluten-free flaxseed, or anything remotely complicated for that matter, is how Alpos website puts this philosophy. Alpo isnt fooled by overcomplicated, flash-in-the-pan trends.Alpo touts its dog food as being the motherload of meatiness, and, sure, some varieties of Alpo may indeed be made with real beef but the ingredients list on the packaging reveals a more complete picture. For example, there is far more water, meat byproducts, and poultry than there is beef in a can of Alpo Prime Classics With Beef or in a pack of Alpo Gravy Cravers With Beef.

Has There Ever Been an Alpo Recall?

There has been an Alpo recall but it was several years ago.

In March 2007, as part of the larger Menu Foods/melamine recall that shocked the country, all sizes and varieties of certain dates of Alpo Prime Cuts canned dog food were recalled because of potential melamine contamination.In all, more than 400,000 cases of Alpo were removed from the market during that 2007 recall full details of which appear immediately below. Our research team has uncovered no more recent recalls of Alpo dog food.

Alpo Recall History

March 2007Cause: Wheat gluten-containing melamine. Announcement: FDA report dated March 30, 2007 (archived here) and FDAs updated List of Recalls for Dog Food From Brand Alpo webpage, dated May 30, 2007 (archived here). What was recalled: 13.2 oz., 22 oz., and variety packs of Alpo canned dog food with a best by date of Feb. 1, 2009, and plant code 1159:

• Alpo Lean Prime Cuts Beef, product code 11132 00310
• Alpo Prime Cuts Chicken & Rice, product code 11132 07035
• Alpo Prime Cuts Beef, product codes 11132 00360, 11132 00461 and 11132 24509
• Alpo Prime Cuts Beef & Liver, product code 11132 00361
• Alpo Prime Cuts Chicken, product codes 11132 00362 and 11132 00463
• Alpo Prime Cuts Turkey Bacon, product code 11132 00363
• Alpo Prime Cuts Beef Stew, product codes 11132 58800 and 11132 00364
• Alpo Prime Cuts Gourmet, product code 11132 00469
• Alpo Prime Cuts Gourmet Dinner, product code 11132 00365
• Alpo Prime Cuts Beef Bacon Cheese, product code 11132 00366
• Alpo Prime Cuts London Grill, product codes 11132 58805 and 11132 00368
• Alpo Prime Cuts Senior Beef & Rice, product code 11132 00210
• Alpo Prime Cuts Entree Chicken Vegetable, product code 11132 04313
• Alpo Prime Cuts Beef & Rice, product codes 11132 07031 and 11132 07034
• Alpo Prime Cuts Lamb & Rice, product codes 11132 07032 and 11132 07033
• Alpo Prime Cuts Beef Vegetable, product code 11132 08440
• Alpo Prime Cuts, 8-count variety pack, product code 11132 86222
• Alpo Prime Cuts, 12-count variety pack, product code 11132 18342
• Alpo Prime Cuts, 24-count variety pack, product code 11132 25712

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References

• Harrison, Warren. Eating Your Own Dog Food.IEEE Software23, no. 3 (May/June 2006): 57.https://www.computer.org/csdl/magazine/so/2006/03/s3005/13rRUygBwg0.
• Alpo Founder, President Retiring.Morning Call(Allentown, Pennsylvania). Oct. 15, 1969. 43.https://www.newspapers.com/image/?clipping_id=29289101&fcf.
• Mead, William B. Tests Show Adverse Effects From All Meat Dog Foods.Lowell (Massachusetts) Sun. March 15, 1971. 7.
• Statement of Lois W. Stevenson.U.S. Congress: Senate Committee on Commerce. 1972. 352354.https://books.google.com/books?id=mv0wd5zBIGYC&pg=RA4-PA353#v=onepage&q&f=false.
• Complaint in the Matter of Liggett & Myers Inc.Federal Trade Commission Decisions, Vol. 87. U.S. Federal Trade Commission. 1977. 1124.https://books.google.com/books?id=IR-6AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA1124#v=onepage&q&f=false.
• Shope, Dan. Nestle to Buy ALPO for $510 Million.Morning Call(Allentown, Pennsylvania). Sept. 20, 1994.
• Levin, Doron P. Grand Met Plans to Sell Alpo Unit to Nestle.The New York Times. Sept. 20, 1994. D5.https://www.nytimes.com/1994/09/20/business/company-news-grand-met-plans-to-sell-alpo-unit-to-nestle.html.
• Purina History. Purina.eu.https://www.purina.eu/meet-purina/history.
• Our Story. Nestl Purina Careers.https://www.nestlepurinacareers.com/why-purina/our-story/.
• Feldstein, Mary Jo. When It Comes to Making Pet Food Its Dog Eat Dog.St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Jan. 14, 2005. C1.
• Top Pet Food Companies Current Data.Pet Food Industry. 2020.https://www.petfoodindustry.com/directories/211-top-pet-food-companies.
• 80 Years of Staying True to Our Meaty Roots. Purina.com.https://www.purina.com/alpo/about.
• Melamine Pet Food Recall of 2007. U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).https://www.fda.gov/animal-veterinary/recalls-withdrawals/melamine-pet-food-recall-2007.
• Alpo Brand Prime Cuts in Gravy Canned Dog Food Voluntary Nationwide Recall; No Dry Purina Products Involved. FDA. March 30, 2007. Archived athttps://www.petful.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/ucm112148.pdf.
• List of Recalls for Dog Food From Brand Alpo. FDA. May 30, 2007. Archived athttps://www.petful.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/ALPO-dog-food-recalls-2007-melamine.pdf.

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Alpo Dog Food Review 2024: Recalls, Pros & Cons

Review Summary

Our Final Verdict

We give Alpo dog food a rating of 2.4 out of 5 stars.

The Alpo brand falls under the Purina-Nestle brand, though these days, its one of his lowest-selling brands. Alpo has been around for a long time, and its one of the most synonymous names for dog food.

However, its name isnt necessarily synonymous with high-quality dog food recipes. Their wet and dry food options are pretty limited these days, but you can find them at Walmart, Petco, The Dollar Tree, and other local retailers.

As more dog food brands have entered the market, the Alpo brand has fallen off the map. Today, many pet owners look for quality meals at affordable prices, and unfortunately, Alpo dog food has excellent price points but has failed when it comes to providing high-quality ingredients without fillers and preservatives.

So, Alpo will fit the bill if youre looking for a dog food brand that you can buy in a pinch if youre on a budget. However, if youre looking for high-quality ingredients from whole meats, veggies, and grains, you may want to pass on this brand.

Also, if your dog suffers from any health issues, such as gastrointestinal problems, allergies, stomach sensitivities, or yeast infections, Alpo may not be the best brand to support your dogs health issues.

At a Glance: The Best Alpo Pet Food Recipes

Alpo Pet Food Reviewed

Alpo dog food hit the scene in 1936 and was founded by Robert F. Hunsicker. However, it was acquired by the Nestle Purina Petcare brand years ago. Since its considered a budget-friendly dog brand, it has a limited number of products available, though it can be found in local pet stores worldwide.

Based in St. Louis, Missouri, the Alpo brand has been in the industry for close to 80 years and was one of the first dog food companies to revolutionize marketing for pet food products. Their successful marketing campaigns were responsible for many of the companys sales during the first few decades of operation.

However, their dog food recipes are simple, made of inexpensive ingredients, and arent known for being organic, holistic, or particularly nutritious. They provide wet and dry meals and a small list of doggie treats. They dont provide dog food specifically formulated for mature dogs or puppies, and they dont have any recipes made for dogs with health issues or for specific breeds.

What Dogs Is Alpo Dog Food Good For?

Overall, youll find that this brand of dog food is suitable for any breed, as it has the bare minimum needed from a nutrient standpoint. The brand doesnt have any specific age recommendations for their meals. However, as mentioned previously, you may think twice about providing this food for dogs suffering from health issues.

Alpo Dog Food Pricing

The best thing about Alpo is the price. You can get a can of Alpo or buy a 12-pack for about a reasonable price. Their dry food is also very inexpensive, which is about half the price of high-quality brands such as Royal Canin or Hills.

Alpo Dog Food Primary Ingredients

Alpo dog foods are fortified with vitamins, fiber, and minerals, including B vitamins in addition to vitamins A and D. Unfortunately, the main ingredients in many of the dog food products are meat by-products, animal fats, wheat, soy, and corn.

These ingredients arent uncommon in dog foods, but some dog owners prefer to have recipes with whole foods listed as the main ingredients. Also, the brand has quite a number of different additives.

Many dry food formulas include corn (which is high in carbohydrates) as the main ingredient, which has been known to contribute to obesity issues in dogs.Lets take a closer look at some of the main ingredients in their foods.

Bone Meal

Bone meal is the crushed bones and hubs of different animals that have been slaughtered. It usually contains protein, calcium, phosphorus, and other minerals that dogs need for everyday health. However, the quality of the bone meal will vary by brand.

Soybean Meal

Soybean meal is another protein supplement thats commonly added to dog food. However, soy has been known to cause allergy issues in humans and dogs. Though soybean meal can help bulk up dog food and add considerable volume, its not necessarily the healthiest meal for your dog.

Yes, soybeans are packed with amino acids, protein, and other minerals, but they pale in comparison to high-quality meats such as chicken, beef, liver, and turkey. Its considered an additive used by manufacturers to keep costs down, which is not favorable for pet owners looking for the best of the best in dog food recipes.

Meat Meal

Meat meal is a dried end product made from various organs of different animals. It is not considered a whole-meat option. Meat meal recipes can be fortified with protein and are very high in fat, additives, and carbohydrates.

Recall History

As mentioned previously, Alpo has been around for over 80 years. Recently, it has had several recalls for its wet and dry products. However, most of the recalls have been for canned dog food products for reasons ranging from melamine contamination to bad expiration dates. One of the more recent recalls happened in 2020 with various canned food products.

Reviews of the 3 Best Alpo Food Recipes

Here are some of the best recipes the Alpo brand offers. There arent any Alpo dog food products available on Amazon or Chewy as of the moment. However, you can find Alpo at local pet food stores and Walmart.

1. Alpo Prime CutsDry Dog Food

Alpo Prime CutsDry Dog Food consists of prime beef. It includes vegetables and has 23 vitamins and minerals to give your dog a daily supply of nutrition. Prime Cuts is made to support strong muscles. The recipe contains meat by-products, gluten, soy, and modified starch. So, if your dog has health issues or stomach sensitivities, this may not be the best pick.

However, it is also fortified with vitamins A, B, D3, and folic acid. Its not the healthiest dog food brand available, but it can be a suitable meal for your dog if youre running low on funds and looking for a budget-friendly option.

• Affordable option
• Fortified with vitamins & minerals
• Easy to find in stores

• Contains by-products
• Doesnt support health issues
• Contains additives
• Limited online availability

2. Alpo Chop House Canned Dog Food

Here is another recipe you can stock up on if you need wet food for your dog. Alpo Chop House Canned Dog Food contains steak-flavored meat products with a tender texture. This soft food is suitable for young puppies that are still growing.

It also has 23 essential vitamins and minerals for everyday health and contains about 10% more protein than other canned meals by the brand. These classic meals are satisfying enough for small and large dogs.

• Chicken & Beef flavors
• Fortified with vitamins & minerals
• Affordable option

• Contains by-products
• Doesnt support health issues
• Contains additives
• Limited online availability

3. Alpo Come & Get It! Adult Dry Dog Food

Alpo Come & Get It! Adult Dry Dog Food is balanced and able to provide a dog with the basic essentials they need for everyday health. It is suitable for all dog breeds and dogs of various ages. It includes calcium, 23 essential vitamins and minerals, and linoleic acid to help support healthy skin and fur.

Most importantly, its one of the most inexpensive dry dog food options you can purchase.

• Tasty steak flavor
• Fortified with vitamins & minerals
• Affordable option

• Contains by-products
• Doesnt support health issues
• Contains additives
• Limited online availability

What Other Users Are Saying

The reviews amongst Alpo customers seem to be pretty mixed. Most buyers know that the brand may not be the best quality, but they are more than happy to buy the product at the current price to save money.

Many users also mentioned that they supplement the brand during times of budget constraint or use the products to mix with other, more expensive brands. There were also negative reviews of owners stating that their dogs became gassy, suffered from diarrhea, and, in some cases, appeared to have stomach nausea after consuming Alpo.

If youre introducing Alpo to your pup for the first time, you may want to start slowly to ensure it doesnt cause digestive irritation.

Our dog wasnt crazy about it. I tried this for our Great Pyrenees that is not at all picky. He wasnt crazy about it. He normally tries anything, even new dog foods, with no problem, but this he wasnt very interested in. I didnt notice any issues with him after eating it.

My dogs only eat this dry dog food twice a day. My dogs love both the Alpo dry and wet foods. They eat both twice a day. I love the price.

Good food. Fed it to a stray dog we were taking care of. She was eating puppy chow before this because thats what her puppies were eating. She liked it ok but preferred the puppy chow. After she got used to it, she liked it.

Conclusion

Dogs dont know if their dog food is healthy or harmful for them, which is why its vital for dog owners to be discerning. So, if you are looking for the healthiest wet or dry food option for your dog, Alpo isnt it. However, it is fortified with vitamins and minerals for daily nutrition and can be used as a substitute if youre in a pinch or on a budget.

However, you may want to introduce it to your dog in a phased approach to see how they react. Also, if your dog has any history of digestive problems, yeast infections, or other issues, you may not want to use this brand, as it is high in carbohydrates and additives that may exacerbate these issues.

The Alpo brand has carved out a small and relevant niche in the dog food world. Its known as a cheap and readily available food brand that you can get at almost any store, and it contains the basics that your dog needs for nutrition.

Featured Image Credit: Chewy