Fold Hill Foods has taken precautionary action to recall several dry cat food diets due to safety concerns. This is a result of a concerning spike detected by the Royal Veterinary College (RVC) in the number of pancytopenia cases in cats throughout the UK.
What should I do?
If you have bought any of the products detailed in the food recall, you should not feed them to your cat. Instead, you should do the following.
- Check if you have bought the affected products and batch code(s) / «use-by / best before» date(s). You can do this by taking a picture of the notice on the Fold Hill website or writing down the batch code(s) / «use-by / best before» date(s) for reference at home.
- Return the product(s) to the store for a full refund (with or without a receipt).
What is pancytopenia?
In the blood, there are three types of cells:
- red blood cells, which carry oxygen to the organs;
- white blood cells, which fight infection; and
- platelets, which help with coagulation or blood clotting.
Pancytopenia means that all these cell populations are lower than normal. Depending on the cell populations that are the most affected, different clinical signs can be detected (alone or in combination) but general signs are lethargy, bleeding (eg in urine, nosebleeds), and fever:
- low red blood cells can cause anaemia, weakness, and lethargy;
- low white blood cells can cause difficulties in fighting infection and fever; and
- low platelets can cause bruises and bleeding.
What is the treatment?
Treatment and diagnosis will vary depending on the cause of pancytopenia, but it can be fatal if left untreated.
Product recall information
The affected products include some of the ranges of AVA, sold exclusively at Pets at Home, Applaws, and Sainsbury’s cat food.
For a full list of products and the affected batch numbers issued by the Food Standards Agency, click here.
To read the statement from Fold Hills Food – the facility where these diets are made, click here.
More information can be found on the RVC website, here.
If you have any concerns, please contact us as soon as possible.
