Bravo Recalls Raw-Food Diet Chicken Blend Tubes

The Minnesota Department of Agriculture detects salmonella in a batch of the product.

Bravo is recalling two-pound tubes of Bravo's Raw-Food Diet Chicken Blend for Dogs and Cats because of the presence of salmonella. 

The recall affects only those tubes made on June 14, 2012, and no other sizes or Bravo products are involved. Look for the ID code 6 14 12 on the white hang-tag attached to the bottom of the plastic film tube. The tubes went out nationwide to distributors, retail stores, and Internet retailers.

While Bravo's own third-party testing did not detect salmonella, routine testing by the Minnesota Department of Agriculture done on samples collected from a single retail location tested positive for presence of salmonella, according to the FDA. 

There have been no reports of illness. 

According to the FDA, "pets with salmonella infections may be lethargic and have diarrhea or bloody diarrhea, fever, and vomiting. Some pets will have only decreased appetite, fever and abdominal pain. Infected but otherwise healthy pets can be carriers and infect other animals or humans. If your pet has consumed the recalled product and has these symptoms, please contact your veterinarian."

Obviously, a raw food product containing chicken is something to handle carefully, but Bravo appears to have a good system in place, despite this episode. According to its Quality Assurance page, every Bravo raw diet product is sent to an independent laboratory, Northeast Labs, and tested for the presence of bacteria -- and the results of those tests can be sent to customers. 

"No product leaves our plants until we receive confirmation the the product has tested to be free of bacteria," it reads. "We do not subcontract production of any of our products to outside third-party sources. We carefully select the sources from which we buy the raw ingredients, we control how it is handled after delivery to our plant, we control every step of the manufacturing process, and we use human grade ingredients and no animal by-products in any of our formulas."

To contact the company, call 866-922-9222.

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