Have you ever wondered what really goes into the food you give your beloved pet? In this episode of Speaking of Pets, veterinary dermatologist Dr. Alice Novotny Jeromin and Janet Novotny King sit down with industry veteran Dr. Marcie Campion to pull back the curtain on the pet food world. Dr. Campion, who has spent over 35 years working for major pet food companies, tackles your most pressing questions: What exactly are AAFCO feeding trials and are they required? How do voluntary and mandatory recalls work? We also dive into crucial topics like the safety protocols co-manufacturers use, the truth about store brands, and the latest trends driving pet nutrition—from humanization and functional ingredients like plasma to why cats are often the ‘second class citizens’ of the industry. Tune in to get science-based information that will help you become the best pet parent you can be.
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Pet Food Industry Exposed: Insider Secrets On Feeding Trials, Safety, And The Rise Of The ‘Cat Dad’
Dr. Marcie Campion’s Background
If you’ve ever wanted to know the inside of what goes on in the pet food industry, you should read on because we have Dr. Marcie Campion. Marcie holds her Bachelor’s degree in Animal Science from the University of Illinois, both a Master’s and PhD from UC Davis. She, for over 35 years, although you’d never know it looking at her, has worked for Iams, Mars, Pro-Pet, and Cargill.
If anyone can answer all of our questions on what’s going on with the pet food industry, what are feeding trials? Do all these companies have quality control? All the background stuff that really makes the safety of our pet foods, of our loving family members, who mine are right here, we’re going to ask Dr. Campion. I can’t thank her enough for taking the time to join us. Welcome, Dr. Campion.
Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. It’s great to see everybody and to finally meet you in person, Alice. I’m so excited.
Yes. Janet, we’ve heard about each other from a mutual friend forever. This is a nice thing. I do, before we go on, want to mention that Marcie is like a Buckeye, Janet, even though she’s got UC Davis and Illinois behind her.
She’s actually a Fighting Illini.
Right, but she has given birth to three Buckeyes, right, Marcie?
Yes, I have actually been in the state of Ohio for many years now. I moved here right after graduate school and then thought I would go see my friends in Chicago, never left, got married and had three boys. I have the t-shirt that says my kids and my money go to The Ohio State University.
We’ll have to have Dean Moore on sometime along with Marcie. He’ll have to thank her.
Are all three enrolled?
The youngest is a freshman at the university, the middle son is a first-year graduate student in Landscape Architecture. The youngest one thinks he wants to be a dentist but you know how that goes when you’re a freshman. The oldest one actually works on the campus in the medical school as a research associate and is applying for medical school. When he comes home and we get to talk science, it’s so fascinating to me all the stuff that he has learned. Occasionally I have to say, “Now tell me what that is,” and so you go you’re not as smart as they used to think you were.
Yes, that’s true.
You get to go to the games, which is super cool.
The football games have been fantastic. Occasionally, we go there. We’re also University of Dayton basketball fans. They’re playing the NIT. Unfortunately, the Buckeyes didn’t quite make it as far as we would have thought in the NCAA, but the Illini are still in there. Depending on who’s convenient, I pick my teams.
I have to tell you, my bracket’s looking really good, people.
Of course, this is going to go out probably after the brackets.
This is true, but I will tell you, because I live in Connecticut and everyone’s UConn Husky crazy here, and I do have them going all the way, but sometimes that doesn’t happen.
AAFCO Feeding Trials And Requirements
Dr. Campion, we hear terms called a feeding trial. First of all, what is a feeding trial, and do all pet food companies do feeding trials? Are they required? What’s the scoop on that?
If you need a volunteer, I have one. Our Golden Retriever.
I love Golden Retrievers. We’ve had a few Golden Retrievers. Basically, what a feeding trial is in the pet food industry, when we refer to it, they’re usually AAFCO trials, which are the American Association of Feed Control Officials. In there, they have protocols for feeding trials. These are feeding trials to determine whether or not a pet food is complete and balanced. They have specific guidelines about how many animals you need to use. You only feed one food, what are the things that you’re going to measure, like weight gain, food intake, blood parameters, chem panels and things like that. They look at the results and compare that to control.
Usually, what the controls consist of is a lot of things that have passed feeding trials go into being a control. There’s not just one particular food, usually. Companies that do a lot of these have captured a database over time of things that are right. You’ve got your choice of feeding trials. You can do like a puppy growth trial, you can do an adult trial, or you can do an all-life stage trial. The all-life stage is before the dogs are pregnant, after they have the puppies or the kittens, and then they take them up to eight weeks of age.
A lot of times, people will actually do all life stages even though maybe it’s a puppy trial or an adult trial, because those are usually a little bit less expensive and are quicker. If you don’t do that, you have another option called an AAFCO nutrient profile. These nutrient profiles are the levels of the essential nutrients in the food that the food needs to meet.
Several very smart people several years ago got together, looked at all the available data, and put it together and said while we do have nrcs, which are much more scientific, they’re looking for the minimums for essential requirements, the AAFCO feeding trials have had safety added to them. It’s not exactly the minimum. It’s like the minimum plus a safety factor as long as they have data to do that. You can use that as well in place of doing animal testing. The animal testing is basically like a feed and weigh them, but sometimes it is quicker to do the nutrient profiles to determine if all life stages is right, or puppies or kittens or adult foods.
How long do they do the food trial? For a month, six months?
It depends. If you do an adult-only, that is six months. If you do the puppies, it takes like 3 months, let’s just call it 4 months or something. There’s a little bit of time that the company that’s doing it needs to obviously put the data together and analyze it and things like that. A puppy trial is actually after they’re weaned, I believe it’s either 8 or 10 weeks.
One thing I’ve learned from our veterinary nutritionists that we’ve had on, is that you should always keep your dog food or pet food in the original bag. Don’t put it in the cute dog food can. Keep the bag in case there’s a recall, because then you’ll have your product number. Are recalls mandatory? How does that work?
No. Now that’s really a great question, Janet, and that’s really a very helpful hint because from a lot of the consumer research that I’ve been involved in my past life, a lot of people do do that. Whether it’s a small bag or a big bag, they do put it in a container, then they’re like, “I don’t know.” Even if you think about just taking a picture of it on your phone, you’ve got it, because you’re probably going to have that food for like a month maybe a little bit less, maybe a little bit longer.
Recalls are not mandatory, necessarily. That’s a rare occasion when the FDA mandates a recall. Basically you have voluntary recalls, which are typically something that the manufacturer has found that isn’t what they don’t want to have out there or they’ve made a mistake or something like that, or they’ve found foreign bodies in there or something. You want to make sure you get that out. Most of those recalls are voluntary, and it makes sense that they would be voluntary because as a manufacturer, you don’t want pets eating or ingesting something that they shouldn’t have or maybe they’re allergic to it, or maybe the human is allergic to it.
Recalls are not always mandatory. It’s rare for the FDA to mandate a recall. Share on XYou just need to make sure. Most of the time, reputable companies are more than willing to work with the FDA if they found it, or if the FDA found it, or if a state official finds it. You do have another set that could be one where the FDA is made aware of something like maybe you’ve got salmonella. Maybe this was caught through some of the testing that the state officials do, or maybe consumers have called into the FDA saying, “My pet is sick. I think there’s something going on here.”
If they investigate and find it, they will contact the company and talk to them about it. They will very carefully go through all the steps to figure out what happened, why it happened, does your food safety plan address this? If it doesn’t, we need to make corrections to that, and they will work with the company very closely to make sure that any gaps in their food safety plan are taken care of. The very last one is really around mandatory recalls and again, that’s rare.
That’s when the FDA becomes aware of something and they’ve tried to work with the company or whatever, and for whatever reason there may not be any cooperation there or something, but if it’s like a safety or a health concern, then they can mandate through the Food Safety Modernization Act that the company does recall that. You never want to get to that as a company, and that’s why most of what you see are voluntary or they get a call and then they work with the company.
If people are curious to see if their pet food has ever had a recall or something like that, you can go into the FDA’s website, I don’t know what the exact location is but I’m sure you can find it, and you’ll get a list of what’s been recalled, what it was, and then was it, I think they use the term terminated, which means that they’ve finished the investigation and they’ve come to a satisfactory understanding. I may not be using the correct like legal terms but they’ve worked together to go through it and that.
Does every pet food company have a safety department, I guess, to check their quality? I’ve heard, and I don’t know if this is true, that there are some pet food companies that don’t have quality control. Is that true?
There’s really a difference between the two. Quality control is making sure that you’re doing everything that you should, and if you don’t do it, there may not be any health risk. If you have a food safety plan, that is really the safety of not only the pets but sometimes the humans as well. Again, reputable companies should have a food safety plan. Within that food safety plan, you’ve got critical control points. These can be for different things, like in your process, do you have a magnet that tries to pick up metal that might be too small for the human eye to see? Do you have screeners that screens out like, I’m making this up, I dropped my cell phone in. Something that big is going to get screened out again.
Quality control ensures you're doing everything correctly. Skipping steps may not always pose a health risk, but a solid food safety plan protects both pets and humans. Share on XThey also do testing of like incoming ingredients for things like aflatoxin which could have a negative effect on the pets. You look through every step where there could be a critical control point that’s important for food safety and quality, and they go through all of those. Now that I am a consultant, what I do when I go to co-manufacturers is the first thing I ask is, “Let’s sit down and take me through your food safety plan. Let’s see what you have.”
A lot of companies do things what they call like test and hold or test and release, however you want to say that. What they’re doing is trying to make sure that once you finish making the product that there’s no salmonella or name your favorite bacteria, there’s none of that in there. They’ll hold that food, and when that’s all done, then they can release it.
Does the company that makes the food do the testing or do they farm it out to an independent lab?
The company will collect the samples, but some companies do have internal micro labs where they can test for salmonella. However, my preference would be that they send it out to a third-party lab so that they are independent and there’s no question about, I don’t want to say tampering or anything like that or cross-contamination or things like that. That’s usually what happens.
If I called a pet food company, big or small, doesn’t matter, and I asked, could they answer if I said do you have a safety plan? Are they required to tell me, “Yes, we do,” or, “No, we don’t?”
I don’t think they’re really required to, but I would venture to say that almost all companies do have food safety plans. The food safety plan resides with whoever’s actually manufacturing the food. If I’m Client A, I go to a co-manufacturer and I say, “I want you to make this recipe for me,” they make it. They’re in charge of the food safety plan. I probably won’t have a copy of their food safety plan, but I can ask about it to make sure.
Now, you mentioned, and Janet, I’ll let you ask in a minute, but while she’s saying this, this comes to mind. You mentioned co-manufacturer. Is that the same as co-packer? What is that? Would you explain to our readers? I was surprised to hear about co-packers, about what that is. Yeah, Janet had no clue.
I’m wondering like, store brand, is that the same as a national brand?
It’s like you go to Costco and you have Kirkland and who makes that? Would you address that, Dr. Campion?
Co-Manufacturers, Private Labels, And Influencers
Sometimes companies, a store brand, a private label, a private label’s another word. Kroger’s, my store. Kroger’s has a Kroger brand called XYZ, that is their private label. The co-manufacturer is the company that makes it for me. Does that make sense?
Yeah. Is that manufacturer the same one that’s making it for another company like Alpo? I’m making it up.
It could be different ways, too. If I’m a co-manufacturer, I can have my own brands. Marcie’s Pet Food Company makes Marcie’s dog food. Okay, that’s my brand, I own that. If I make Alice or Janet’s dog food, then I would become your co-manufacturer, taking your recipes and making them. Co-manufacturers offer different services. If you think about everything that goes into making pet food, from acquiring the ingredients to generating the formulas to testing the formulas and things like that, or helping with claims, or helping with labeling and packaging and things like that, co-manufacturers sometimes do all of that or they may only do a few parts of that.
If it’s Janet and Alice’s dog food, you’d say, “We know about nutrition. We’ll give you the formula, you just need to make it.” You would work with the co-manufacturer to make sure that the ingredient specs are right, that they test them when they arrive, that when the product is finished and we make it, that the kibbles are the right size, or the cans have the right amount of pressure in them and everything. It’s not one thing. Different co-manufacturers could offer different services in that.
When you say co-manufacturers, I pictured it one big dog food factory, and these bags are with Marcie food, the next bags are labeled with Janet’s food, it’s the same food with different labels. That’s not necessarily the case.
No, it can be that. My only role as a co-manufacturer is to do private label or co-manufacturing. I don’t want to use any names or anything, but I could make everybody’s products and have none of my own, or I could make a lot of my own products and only have a few of Janet and Alice’s products. I could be using Janet and Alice’s recipe, or I could say, “I have Recipe A, B, or C. Does this fit your needs? We know how to make this, we know it’s great, we know it’s complete and balanced. Do you want that one?”
We’ll put your name on it, type of thing, but the public has no idea. You know what I mean? Some of these movie stars or influencers that have Janet King dog food. Okay, Janet, I’m using your example. That could be just regular dog food and I’m using my influence to sell that.
Sure. That goes with cosmetics.
Yeah, but these are our pets. I don’t care about the cosmetics.
I’m just saying that the influencer is everywhere.
If you think about an influencer who’s doing that, it can be a lot of different people. It could be chefs, it could be actors, it could be veterinarians, it could be all kinds of people. I hope the one thing that they all have in common is they love their pets, they care about their welfare, they want them to live healthier, longer lives. That’s at least what I have found. Of course they want to make money as well. I think the driving force of getting into it and if you look at a lot of the really major brands, like what their histories are, that’s where some of these brands came from.
The classic example, and you see this on TV, is Bill Bishop with Blue Buffalo. They had a dog that had cancer. Of course, all those of us that know that have had pets with health issues, you would do almost anything to help them feel better and do better. That’s how he got into the business, and his background in advertising helped them, but they were really very science-driven and everything as well. They went out and found all that.
If you want me to make Janet King’s dog food you would go out and look for someone to help you bring that to life in a way. I’m okay with influencers as long as the people behind the influencer know what they’re doing. They know how to find the right ingredients, they know processing, they know quality, safety, nutrition, things like that. Being influenced I think is great, but who’s standing behind the influence?
I’m okay with influencers—as long as the people behind them know what they’re doing. They should understand ingredients, processing, quality, safety, and nutrition. Being influenced can be great, but what matters is who’s standing behind the influencer. Share on XI think I know the answer to this. What’s trending in the pet food market these days, in 2026?
Pet Food Industry Trends And Functional Ingredients
I think what I’ve seen, and it’s been similar the last few years, I guess, just getting bigger if you will. I would say humanization. A couple of things. You’re seeing human-grade pet food, but you’re also thinking like, “I don’t like to eat the same thing every day, why would my dog want to eat the same thing every day?” I’m okay eating cereal, but maybe tomorrow I want steak. It’s about variety, it’s about flavor and things like that. It’s about different formats. I don’t always want to eat the same thing every day, and I’m sure they don’t. I think a second one that goes hand-in-hand with this I would say is premiumization.
People go, “I don’t want an economy dog food, not for my Golden Retriever. My Golden Retriever deserves the best. I want them to have meat as the number one ingredient, I want this, I want that. I want it to be fun. I want it to be very flavorful. I want them to enjoy what they’re doing from a premium perspective.” Branching off of that, I would say functionality. Functionality would be, and I think this goes for us humans too, this is part of humanization too, “I want to live a longer, healthier life. I want my pet to be with me doing that as well.”
What we’re really trying to do with our pets is to ensure that they are at that peak health as long as possible before things start declining. That’s the whole goal in this functional area, is to try to keep everything at that peak health for as long as we possibly can so they’re with us for as long as they can. Let’s face it, when our dogs start getting older or our cats are getting older, you’re watching them like a hawk for like any little thing and you’re trying to do whatever you can to keep them healthy for a long time.
Getting back to the functional ingredients, I’ve read about things like curcumin, hemp, CBD, plasma. I just wonder if AAFCO is going to allow those things that could improve function.
Marcie, where are you getting plasma from to put in your dog food?
If you think about it, a lot of dog foods that have fresh meat in them already have plasma in them. They come in a little bit. What a couple of companies have done is they have taken they take blood from animals that are slaughtered in a humane way and everything else, it’s just part of the process. In a way, plasma is a part of blood. Plasma’s the clear stuff that you see in the blood once you’ve taken out like the red blood cells and things like that.
The cool thing about plasma is it’s really high in protein, but it’s also really high in bioactive metabolites and stuff. You’re getting to see things like immunity, digestion, even some like cognition and other things, mobility, that they’re working on. You’re starting to see some really cool things, but on top of that, it’s really palatable. Dogs and cats really like it. Just to add a third thing, it’s like the Ginsu knives, but here we have one more thing.
It also really helps with processing, because sometimes when we start changing the kinds of things we want to add to dry food or wet food, things start falling apart because physically like when you start getting really high in protein, you don’t have as many carbohydrates that you use in baking and that to hold everything together. Next thing your kibbles are like crumbs and things like that. Plasma can help you hold that together, not only for dry food but for canned food as well. It’s one of those things that a nutritionist like myself loves because you’re getting great functionality, processing, and palatability. I didn’t mean to go off on plasma there.
I thought that was fascinating. I had no idea.
I get Pet Food Industry newsletter and there was a podcast which I didn’t listen to yet on plasma. I was just thinking when you were talking, it seems like the pet food industry is really focused on dogs and not so much cats. Would you agree with that? Can I tell you why? My two cats tell me what to do. Also, Marcie and Janet, as a dermatologist and allergist, we always worry about cats being allergic to fish because cats never really ate fish. Cats are from arid regions. Now this is what I was told, Dr. Campion, you have to correct me if I’m wrong.
I had a cat with a paw in the fishbowl, okay?
That’s true, but fish is a big component because it’s cheap, it’s a good source of protein for them. Talk about a little about cat food. They seem like second-class citizens.
Cat Health, Mobility, And Palatability
Let me just tell you, thank you. I’ve used that term a lot before when I’ve talked about cats. My nutritional work was all done with cats. I wasn’t a cat person to start and I will say this to a lot of you is I don’t think you really adopt a cat, I think cats adopt you and then you become a cat person, so it’s very interesting. On trends, I should have mentioned this before, there’s a new trend this year called cat dads. Have you heard about cat dads?
I don’t think you really adopt a cat. I think cats adopt you, and you just become a cat person. Share on XCat dads. Is it on Instagram?
It was just one of those things I’m like, “It’s about time, darn it, cat dads.” You’re starting to see them. I think these are maybe like the Gen Z’s like my boys’ ages and things like that. They love all kinds of animals. Unfortunately, my one son’s allergic to cats so we no longer have cats. They’re just really fascinating. You’re exactly right. I think the reason why there are more dogs as pets generally than cats as pets.
However, it depends on your lifestyle as well too. Sometimes if you’ve got a more urban lifestyle and things like that, there are more cats. If you think of it from a pet company perspective, those dogs are bigger, they eat a lot more dog food than those cats do. That’s one reason, I think. The other reason too is when you look at the companies that were really heavy-duty into innovation for cat health and welfare, it was really hard to find cats to do research with, to do feeding trials with. There just weren’t a lot of them out there.
The one exception was UC Davis. All of my nutritional research was done with cats and I absolutely loved it and adored it and everything. I think the cats’ time has come too. At one point in time, at one of the companies I worked for, a marketing guy stood up, handed everybody a $2 bill. We’re like, “Why are we getting a $2 bill?” It’s because at that point in time, our cat food was twice as profitable as our dog food. We rewarded our sales people for selling volume, so guess what? We were missing out on some profit there.
Once we got that, we’re like, “I get it.” At one point in time, we put together a promo for another company I worked with and the marketing person, the consumer research person said to me, “I need some help, like buy a bag of cat food and you get a free can. Everybody does that. We need something new and different.” He’s looking at me and I am not the marketing person but I’ve done consumer research and people are a lot of fun. We took that and I said, “Here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to call it keeping your cat healthy is easy as 1, 2, 3. One is the dry food to help make an acidic urinary ph for urinary tract. Number two are wet foods because you want the hydration. Number three is about keeping your cat not stressed.”
The Six Pillars Of Cat Stress And Retail Solutions
That was the point in time a few years ago when the veterinary behaviorists came out with the Six Pillars of Cat to think about with your cat so they wouldn’t become stressed. If you think about it, half the people can’t tell you what a stressed cat looks like. They think the cat’s hiding under the bed because they’re playing tag with you as they jump out and bite your feet. They just don’t get it. When their pupils are really big, they think their cats are just excited and they don’t realize they’re scared to death.
We took this presentation and I put it in front of a consumer group and shared with them different slides and we talked about cats aren’t second-class citizens and here’s why you need to pay attention. We were talking to groups of retailers. I’m sitting behind the screen and one of the gentlemen in there, he was a total negative Nelly. Everything that the moderator was talking about was like negative, negative, negative. They brought me in last to talk and give this presentation to him. I thought this is going to be really good because he’s not a cat dad.
He sat there, I go through the presentation, I’m telling them why they should do this, it’s for the cat’s health, it’s also for your retail because a lot of the solutions to those six stress pillars are hard goods that are being sold in the retail, like you don’t want just 2 litter box you want 2. You need a cat tree because cats aren’t just horizontal, they love vertical space, that can reduce stress.
We went through this whole thing and then we got done, and nobody is saying anything. I thought they really hate it and they don’t want to hurt my feelings. Finally, the moderator looks at negative Nelly and says, “Joe, what do you think?” He goes, “I don’t think I’m doing enough for my cat parents.” I’m like, “Home run.”
I totally agree with that because nobody really thinks about that. They’re mysterious creatures.
They are very mysterious creatures. Alice, or somebody might have seen this at one of the veterinary conferences, I went in, they talked about mobility in cats. I thought I need to hear about this because I feel like this is an issue we need to be talking about. There’s a factoid out there that talks about greater than 90% of cats over the age of 12 have radiographic evidence of arthritis. Cats hide it so well you really never know when your cat is feeling sick unless you’re really tuned into it or have had cats before.
Greater than 90% of cats over the age of 12 have radiographic evidence of arthritis. Cats hide it so well that you may never know they’re in pain unless you’re highly attuned or have had cats before. Share on XWe’re sitting in the room and I forget who the speaker was, she was very good, I’m sure it’s probably somebody we know and I just can’t remember. She took a video. She is in her home and she has a kitten, an adult, and a senior cat. She’s taking the video. She puts a bowl of food so in her kitchen is the kitchen counter, a dining room table that’s a little bit lower, and a chair that’s even lower, and on the floor.
One at a time she brought them in and put the bowl of food on the counter, which is the highest point. The kitten jumps from the floor to the counter, one jump. The adult goes from like the floor to the table to the counter. Senior cat, floor, chair, table, counter. They were totally compensating for their level of mobility or their weight or something. I kid you not, 400 veterinarians go, “Ooh.” I’m like, “That’s right. We need to be doing more for these cats.”
As you said, it’s hard to really do feeding trials with cats because their palatability. They may just not want to eat something for God only knows the reason. Whereas pretty much dogs, if they’re hungry, they’ll eat but you can’t do that with cats. I don’t know. As you said at the beginning when you first started out in cat nutrition, that had to be tough because I don’t know how you can grade a food as far as palatability when cats can be so picky anyway.
There are so many things that impact palatability. With the different formats of food that we have, anything from dry to wet to fresh to human-grade, things like that, comparing something like with a really high moisture versus something with very little moisture really isn’t fair because we know that they do like moisture. Something with like that’s only made out of like fresh meat compared to something that’s got maybe meat meals and that is maybe not as palatable.
It’s very interesting time that we’re in. Sometimes, what you don’t realize is there’s a very old study out there that was looking at cats that they were eating was like dry kibbles. As they tried to go from dry kibbles to something else, they were like, “I don’t know what that is, that’s strange. That could be bad for me, I shouldn’t eat that, I should I need to eat these like little brown things that are really tasty and crunchy.” If you’ve raised kittens on things where they have this one and then this one, they’re more than willing to go out there and try more. It’s different.
We had Dr. Schoenberg, our cat specialist on and she said the same thing. She said she tells cat owners when they get a kitten, give them a variety because like you said, here you’ve got an eight-year-old cat, we better switch it to wet to get more hydration in it, although Janet will tell you about her hydration story, and the cat turns its nose. My cats have always been outdoor barn cats, but they sleep on heated beds on the porch and stuff, and they love anything and everything.
I’m not used to a cat saying, “Ugh,”” but I’ll tell you, there’s nothing worse than when you get an older cat in kidney failure and they don’t want to eat. I will stand on my head, turn around three times. You have all these different varieties of open cans “Come on.” You heat it up. It’s very frustrating because you know the cat’s got to eat and they just feel sick to their stomach.
It’s really hard when you see things like that. The other thing sometimes with cats is people don’t realize that cats, if left to their own devices, are nibblers through the day and the night. If Mom sees that the cat isn’t eating what I just put down in front of it or they only eat a couple of bites, then you’re like, “”They don’t like it. I need to get them something else.” Next thing you’ve created a finicky cat or a finicky dog.
That’s true. Janet, tell her about your hydration story.
I have many hydration stories, but one is we had a diabetic cat and I’m at the doctor and they’re saying, “You’re going to have to give the cat insulin.” I was raising two sons at the time, working full-time, my husband’s working I’m like, “You’ve got to be kidding me.” The little tech girl is like, “You’re going to know how to do it.” I’m like, “I’ve never used a,” what is it called?
Sub-Q fluids?
No, but the syringe terrifying. The whole family learned how to do it, and she was very adaptable because we’d put the stinky wet cat food on the dryer, the clothes dryer, put her up there, she’d eat that, and then she’d literally just raise her shoulders like, “Go for it.” I had to do sub-Q fluids. I would sit cross-legged on the floor, and I’d use the knob on the cupboard and I’d hook the IV bag on there. It was smart and then put the butterfly in. It’s a quick minute then it’s off. As a pet owner, the first couple of times really stressed me out, but then you get into it and the cat was agreeable. The two cats I have now, there’s no way. The two cats I have now, one of the other doctors we had on was all this conversation about fluids. I bought that what is it, Al?
Hydra Care.
Purina Hydra Care, it’s in a packet. I’m like, “I’m going to put this out.” It was like I made a Manhattan cocktail for these cats. They came flying in and I was like, “This is like an expensive habit that’s not going to happen every day, people.” Honest to God, I’ve never seen anything like it. By the way, your allergic son my cats are on liveclear.
We should get Purina to sponsor us. I swear to God, every episode we do, we either mention Hydra Care or liveclear.
I’ve been using it for many years with my cats, and my husband’s allergic and my one son is allergic and they’re fine.
What I don’t understand is when we did have our cat, when we got married, Jim had a cat. Jim was way ahead of his time, he was a cat dad before his time. He was in. We had the kids, and Gabe was not allergic to Normo. Normo was the cat’s name. When we’d go over to his mom’s house, she had a cat that was a longer hair and he’d be like sneezing, rubbing his eyes and it was so unusual.” As I said, there are so many great innovations to try to not only help cats and dogs but help us humans as well too.
Prescription Diets Versus Over-The-Counter Food
I have a question on prescription diets. One of our guests told me that they are held to a higher standard, and they have more Omega-3s in them. Is that true? I’m sure a lot more research goes into them.
It makes sense because it’s almost like a drug, that food.
It is. “Let food be thy medicine,” right?
Right. Technically, those are still food. They’re not drugs. They’re just sold through the veterinary channel, but because they are sold through a veterinarian in an ethical channel
Medicinal, if you will.
You can’t call them medicinal because that would be a drug claim and the FDA would be calling you up the next day. They get a little bit of, let’s just call it leeway about what they say on the bag, but it’s not really about the nutrition. Everything that they’re using there, at least ingredients or nutrients or things like that, you can use in your over-the-counter stuff. The over-the-counter, the intended use for over-the-counter is for like healthy animals, but the intended use for the veterinary diets is for pets that are sick or whatever. As you think about it over your career, how much stuff, Alice, have you seen that used to only be in veterinary diets, like Omega-6/3 ratios and etc., and now they have transitioned over into over-the-counter food and things like that?
Over-the-counters have come a long way.
Yes. It’s not that they’re not necessarily meant to be veterinary diets, but the more that we have learned like in my time at the Iams company, it was like my first ten years that’s where like the Omega-3s started coming in, the Omega-6/3 ratio. That’s where other things like FOS, MOS. We had such a great strategic research group, they were really bringing the science along. At first, as a company, that science would be put into like the Iams veterinary diets and then, eventually, after we came up with more new science, like it would trickle down into Eukanuba, then it would trickle down into the Iams things like that.
To me that’s a really great trend that we are willing, besides doing functional things, we’re willing to do more innovation. We’re trying to make these pets live longer, healthier lives, and that takes a lot of money and a lot of research, and I feel like we’re making progress. Maybe just because I’ve been around for a long time, but I feel like we’re making progress in innovation and health, I feel like we’re making progress in like food safety.
Sometimes people would disagree with you because they feel like there are more recalls than ever, and I say, “No, we just are catching things.” We’re getting better at catching them. We’ve got better food safety plans, we’ve got better this, so there’s actually probably less safety issues now because we’re catching them early and stuff.
We had a colleague of yours and mine on the show, and she made a good point when she said that, “A recall isn’t a bad thing. It means that company is being responsible and either testing themselves or sending out for testing.” I would be more wary of pet food companies that I’ve never seen anything “wrong” with, because are they even checking, type thing?
Consumer Trust And Pet Food Company Practices
I’m starting to see companies get a lot better talking about what are the food safety checks, what are the quality checks that you’re doing, how many of them.
More transparent.
Yes. I think that’s what consumers want to see. I want to know what you’re testing, like how are you testing it and why are you testing it. The number one thing that drives consumers to buy a brand is trust. I need to trust you. That’s why when you see like a recall, that’s why they’re out there like, “Let’s get that taken care of if we need to pull it back.”
The number one thing that drives consumers to buy a brand is trust. Share on XA lot of things don’t leave the plant because of all the tests and that, like the tests and holds for salmonella and things like that. They hold it for an extra three days until the testing gets done that shows that it’s negative for salmonella. It goes through metal detectors, it goes through X-ray detectors, it goes through screeners, it’s got visual checks on everything. They’re really putting a lot more of that safety work up front so that you’re not seeing it when it comes out later.
I think the hard thing for consumers too is if their pet eats something and throws up, you always blame the food. I’ve seen cases where dogs were out in the spring running around the field and ate a bad mushroom toxic and it turned out it wasn’t that. By the time we looked at everything, we’re like, “No, it was the mushroom.”
I remember back in the day when I visited the Iams plant near Dayton there, I don’t know how you guys did with all the people calling you, “My dog threw up.” It’s like when they call me and say, “My dog threw up,” as the veterinarian. I can think of ten reasons why the dog threw up, and one of them could be food, but another one could be a mushroom or it ate the Barbie Dreamhouse furniture or something. There’s so many reasons, and to actually to whittle it down. The sad part is, I think the public wants to blame someone, and a lot of times, it is the pet food company, and I think they take a bad rap. I really do. I don’t know what you guys do to recover from that. It’s got to be tough.
Consumer Questions Versus Complaints And Customer Care
I think the most important one of the most important groups at the Iams company I’m just talking about Iams now, this was before they were acquired by Procter & Gamble. We had our own in-house consumer care. A couple of people that I know really well ran that. As a product developer at this point in time, we would get monthly reports on everything that came in. The thing that I found really amazing was out of all the phone calls, emails, letters that came in, only about 10% of those were complaints. The rest of them were questions. “Tell me about this,” “Tell me where I can buy it,” “Tell me what this ingredient is,” “How do I brush my cat’s teeth?’
I would have never guessed that.
Yes, so it’s really interesting and that’s why as the Iams company was acquired by Procter & Gamble, Procter & Gamble did not get rid of customer care. They had software that analyzed everything, and besides, these kinds of things, they would also do training. Every month, the consumer care people were doing training, like I would go in and train them on DHA and puppy food, “What is that for? What is it about? What’s the data?” Everything, so these people knew so much that they could really talk to them and if they needed to talk to a veterinarian they would talk to a veterinarian.
Most of these were handled by the frontline people consumer care people talking about “Did you let your dog out? How old is your food? Do you have poisonous plants in your house?” It was all like this, and they really helped you get it down and help satisfy these people that maybe it wasn’t this, it was this. They always made it right. Even if it probably wasn’t the food’s fault, that individual would probably get like a coupon or a refund.
I have a friend who’s also a nutritionist I’ve worked with for many years and he always said, “The most important thing on the bag is the guarantee. If you’re not completely satisfied with this, you can bring it back and we’ll refund your money.” As a matter of fact, I think Eukanuba used to refund 110% of your money, something like that.
It’s like a good return policy anywhere. It builds more confidence.
I don’t know, it’s getting more stringent in some places. At TJ now, Janet, I think you can’t return stuff after so many days. Getting back to the pet food thing. Marcie, do you think most pet food companies still have a consumer department like that, to that same degree that what Iams had? I thought that was fabulous. I met those people and I was so impressed.
I would say probably the larger ones do. I’ve not been in some of the multinational ones to see this only the Iams and that, but I think what people have learned is that people want someone to answer the phone. I that is not true in the tech industry, and I am not a big fan of trying to explain my problem on a chat thing with a chat
Try to talk to someone on Verizon. It doesn’t exist, or cable.
Think about who’s really good at that. I hate to say names, but I find Chewy to be fantastic at that. I don’t really order stuff from Chewy because I work for a pet food company, but when I would see these different things on different places or hear these different stories, you go, “That company understands what’s really important. My pet passed away, you sent me a card, you sent me a little thing, and you told me to take my product, my leftover product, and donate it to the humane society.”
People love that.
That drives trust. I trust them that they love my pet as much as I do and I’m going to go back again and again.
I just read on Facebook that someone, Janet, like you called in and said, “I’m ordering this and I’m just having a bad day.” They sent her a flower arrangement the next day.
The last time I called Chewy because I had to do something with my auto-ship, and the guy said, “You give Isabelle and Atticus a little scratch under the chin for me.” I was like, “Okay.” My only complaint as a as a doctor is, I’m helping out a rescue couple of rescues here in Florida right now. When I’m calling in prescriptions, I’m on hold forever. That’s my only complaint.
The pharmacist is always very nice and we chat, but I am on hold, that music. “One of our Chewy members will be with you in a minute.” They need to work on that. I love what they’re doing sending flowers and having you donate, but they need to work on the holding because I’m retired now, but if I were at the vet office and I only had a minute to call this in before I had to go see another patient, it’s not fun.
That’s life. Marcie, I have a question. You got to tell us about your pets.
Yes, we want to hear about the Marcie Campion pets, because we got pictures.
Dr. Campion’s Pets And The Bracco Italiano Breed
We are usually a one-pet family, and every pet becomes like a I won’t say a golf course mascot, I would say a golf course employee. We got golden retrievers, so where’s the first place we take them when we get them? My husband is a golf course superintendent at a club here in Dayton called NCR Country Club. We hop on the golf cart and I’m holding the puppy and he’s driving and the puppy.
At some point, he’s like, “Okay, put the puppy down.” I’m like, “What are we doing?” Next thing, we are driving off and there’s the puppy. They are training them that, “When I go, you come. Where the cart goes, you come.” If we’re driving around and we see a squirrel, a deer, a fox, a coyote, we got it all. You have to teach them that they can’t go after and it can’t bark and stuff. Those are what our dogs learn how to do when they first get here. We’ve had a couple golden retrievers. Our most recent dog, who unfortunately passed away at Thanksgiving, Marco, was crazy. He was a Bracco Italiano. Alice, you ever seen one in person?
No, have not seen one.
When I went to my veterinarian, they’re like, “He’s not in the list in the computer. Other.” We became an “other.” Braccos, I think, have been in the United States for a while, but they only got accepted into the AKC maybe like a few years ago.
What is it called?
Bracco Italiano. They’re basically an Italian bird dog retriever. They look like German Shorthaired Pointers but they have really long ears, a hound-kind-of head.
They’re darling. Big, long ears.
Yes. If you ever see them sitting, you know how cats sit, they’re sitting on their bottoms but they’ve got their legs? They’re very regal-looking. That’s exactly what he looked like. He was very regal.
How’d you end up with this odd breed?
They’ve been in Europe for quite a while, obviously, they originated in Italy and that, and there’s a lot of them over there and actually one of them, I think they won the Crufts Dog Show a few years ago or whatever. It was like the overall All-Star. What you find out is they are very smart, they are very independent, and if there’s ever a dog that played like a cat, it’s this guy. Janet, you know how they do things around like this and that and then how they sit up in different things? It’s so funny.
They don’t really put on weight for like a couple of years. When he came home, I swear to God, I thought he was starved. You’d fill up his bowl and he would just nibble at it like a cat again. He was more interested in playing and sniffing and all this and that. He was really our great boy and all of our dogs eventually get like Employee of the Month at the golf course.
I hope you sent that picture. “Employee of the Month’.
He was sitting in front of a piece of equipment and that was like his Employee of the Month picture. Of course my boys absolutely love him and adored him, and he just was so special. I think what the breeder told us when we picked him up was, because they’re scent hounds, when the head goes down, the ears shut off. It’s so true.
When I first saw we went out to their farm to see the dogs, they were only an hour from here and we looked at them and they’re running around and Dragon was the dog’s name and he’s running and the guy kept calling him back, “Dragon, Dragon.” I’m like, “That dog’s not very well-trained, he’s not even listening.” They all are. They do their own thing and you call them, they look up, he’ll decide whether or not he’s ready to come and then he would come or he’d be like, “I’m going, sorry.” They’re really smart.
I’ve got to look up the breed, that sounds really cool.
Do you still have him, or he’s gone?
No, he passed away at Thanksgiving, and so we’re waiting a little bit now.
He’ll send you another one. I’m a believer that when you lose a dog, they send you the next one.
Jim came home and told me this breed and I go, “I’ve been in dogs and cats for 30 years, I’ve never even heard of this breed. Where did you see this?” He goes, “Somebody was out on the golf course.” It was like winter, like walking one of them.” I go, “Honey, no, because there’s not enough of them in the US, they’re probably going to be inbred,” like all the things you worry about.” I look them up, I go, “There’s only seven breeders in the United States. They’re probably going to be like in the Northwest. We’re never going to get to them.” No, they were an hour down the road.
It was meant to be.
I would get another one of them in a minute, so they are super sweet and everything.
I hope you do.
Well, the Bracco Italiano specialty after Global Pet Expo just so happens to be down the road in Wilmington, Ohio, I said, “We’re going to go and look.”
Go and look. It’s so close.
We have to ask you our guest question. What is your pet or human peeve?
I think with Marco, not the goldens, but with Marco because he has long ears and he had some jowls, he gets in that water bowl and everything ends up on the ears and the jowls. He would shake his head that like slow-motion shake, and stuff is flying everywhere. We were always wiping off the walls, wiping off the furniture, and all of a sudden, you wouldn’t even know it was there and a couple of days later. It’s dry.
I bet if there’s some dried there now, you love it.
We were out somewhere walking and I took off my tennis shoes and in my tennis shoes, they have very short fur, very fine, but they’re like little spears, they weave themselves in.
It’s like a cat.
Yes, you can’t get them off your clothes, even with a lint brush. They were in my shoes, they somehow got caught in on my socks and were in my shoes and they do, you just are like, “Okay.”
Our older sister had a Basset Hound and they just smell.
They’re very seborrheic.
That dog chewed everything. Chewed razor blades. The kind you used to pop out, the double-edge. Was fine.
This guy was so good, he has never chewed up one thing, not even as a puppy.
He’s a keeper. That would be a keeper.
Smart, yeah.
This has been so informative.
Thank you for having me. I had a great time.
Dr. Campion, this has been so fascinating. It’s really interesting, thank you.
It was so nice meeting you after all these years, I have to tell you.
It’s good to meet all of you ladies as well. Thank you for having me, I really appreciate it.
Our pleasure.
Important Links
About Dr. Marcie Campion
Dr. Marcie Campion is a distinguished leader with 35 years of global experience in the pet food industry, having held pivotal roles at The Iams Company, Procter & Gamble, Mars, Pro-Pet, and Cargill Pet Care. Her expertise spans R&D, Regulatory Affairs, Professional Sales, and Technical Services, making her a versatile and strategic asset to any corporate board.
Dr. Campion has a proven track record of driving innovation and excellence. She has led R&D New Product Development teams, collaborated with AAFCO and regulatory officials, and chaired the Nutrition Sub-Committee for the Pet Food Institute. At Procter & Gamble Pet Care, she served as R&D Global Claims Manager and Products Researcher, partnering with agencies like Saatchi & Saatchi and P&G Marketing to develop global Master Claims Calendars for three brands.
Transitioning to Professional Sales, Dr. Campion led the Scientific Relations team at both P&G and Mars, transforming technical insights into persuasive selling tools across diverse distribution channels, including grocery, pet specialty, mass merchandisers, and veterinarians. As Vice President of Technical Services at Pro-Pet, she oversaw Food Safety, Quality, Regulatory Affairs, and New Business Development. Following Pro-Pet’s acquisition by Cargill in 2018, she assumed the roles of North American and later Global Technical Lead for Pet (NA, LATAM Central, EU, Russia, Korea and China) spearheading product development, cost optimization, and innovation projects.
Dr. Campion’s contributions have been recognized with two Cargill Global Feeding Champions Awards. She was also an inaugural participant in ALAATUS Honors, where she engaged with senior leadership on strategic technical issues, mentored top technical talent, and led initiatives for priority customers.
Since retiring in February 2025, Dr. Campion has been consulting with various companies in the pet industry, continuing her mission to enhance the health and longevity of pets worldwide.
Dr. Campion holds a B.S. in Animal Science from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, and both an M.S. and Ph.D. in Nutrition with a minor in Physiological Biochemistry from the University of California, Davis. She is also a dedicated family person, sharing her life with her family of five and their beloved 11-year-old Bracco Italiano, Marco.
Dr. Campion’s unparalleled expertise, strategic vision, and passion for innovation position her as an invaluable contributor to any corporate board seeking to drive growth and impact in the pet care or related industries.