Tiny White Grain Mites in Beneful Dog Food

Posted by Ellen on October 17, 2009 at 13:10:24:

I had a problem with grain mites in our Beneful dog food in 9/09. The following are excerpts from an e-mail I sent to someone in the Office of Consumer Affairs at Purina Nestle:

Per our conversation on 9/29/09, Camille Benette of the FDA, Consumer Complaint Dept. (206-553-7001, ext. 40), asked me or my husband to contact you regarding food mites in our Beneful dog food. She also asked us to call the Global Food Manager for WalMart and Sam’s Club, which my husband did. Mr. Sanders then contacted Purina. We received a voice mail from Purina on 9/28 and were given the case #________ and were asked to contact 1-800-778-7462. I called Purina on 9/30 and told them I would be sending an e-mail to you, but I did give them some basic information about the case.

My husband bought a large bag of original Beneful dog food at Sam’s Club at 13550 Aurora Ave. N., Seattle, WA 98133 around the end of August 2009. We kept the open bag of Beneful at one end of our kitchen. When the bag was about ¾ full, I noticed a pinkish brown film on the inside of the bag as well as the outside. I thought it was odd but thought perhaps someone spilled liquid in the bag. We did mix the Beneful with Iams dog food when feeding our lab. At times, our dog, who usually has a big appetite, did not want to eat his food.

At around the same time, I noticed white dots on the top of my black coffer maker, which was about 6 feet away from the Beneful. I thought someone had spilled sugar on the coffee maker, so I cleaned it off and the white dots were back the next day. After a week of the dots reappearing, I noticed that they were moving. My husband could not see them without a magnifying glass. We had little white bugs on the outside and inside of our coffee maker. We thought we had bugs in our coffee. I did some Internet research about little white bugs in coffee, but couldn’t find information about any bugs to match what I was seeing in our coffee maker.

When the sunlight came into our kitchen one morning on 9/12, when the Beneful bag was half full, I could see little white bugs crawling inside and outside of the Beneful bag, totally covering the bag, some in the Iams dog food, in the cat food bowls, all over the walls, cupboards, bookcase, stove, refrigerator, fruit bowl on top of the refrigerator, and plants on the bookcase. I immediately looked for a solution on the Internet and found websites with forums about little white bugs in Beneful - http://www.e-bug.net/forum/messages/20587.shtml and http://www.yorkietalk.com/forums/yorkie-health-diet/142078-beneful-dog-food-bugs.html . It suddenly became very clear to me that we had food/grain mites. No one on these forums had a good solution on how to get rid of the bugs. Those who contacted Purina were not given a good solution.

I immediately put the dog food in the garbage can outside. I went to Lowe’s and bought some Safer Insect Killing Soap for plants, which kills several type of bugs, including mites. I did a thorough cleaning of the kitchen, which included using the insect killing soap on the walls, cupboards, refrigerator, bookcase, and stove, and put all food into sealed bags. I left my plants outside and sprayed them off and on. The bugs kept coming back on the plants because I think eggs kept hatching. I used the spray off and on in the kitchen and at this point in time only see a few bugs.

Since no one had a solution on the Beneful bug forums, I plan on posting my experience on e-bug.net. When I talked to Purina on 9/30, I asked them how to get rid of the bugs. In addition to doing the obvious things like removing the contaminated food and keeping other food in the kitchen sealed, I was told to vacuum the bugs. Since we have a bagless vacuum, this is not an option for us.

A couple days after I sent this e-mail, I could no longer see any bugs. I did originally make the mistake of not writing down an identifying number from the Beneful bag. Had I done that, the FDA would have come to my home to get bug samples. I did, however, get a settlement from Purina for the dog food that I had to toss as well as for the time I spent cleaning to get rid of the bugs. I was also sent 8 Purina pet food coupons, which I gave to a friend. (Of course, after warning her about Beneful.)

What I did learn is that the mites cannot reproduce if they have no moisture. Once they have moisture, they reproduce. This explains why I had more trouble getting rid of them in my coffee maker and on my plants. I also found out that Beneful is more moist than most dog foods in a bag and it has more grain so it's more likely to have grain mites - especially in the summer. I was also told by the Office of Consumer Affairs at Purina to use a space heater on the mites because high temperatures kill them. By the time I learned this, the mites were gone.

I will never buy Beneful again, nor do I plan on buying any Purina pet food.

Follow Ups:

• Blaming Purina isn't fair Bob 20:18:36 11/14/2009 (0)
• Re: Tiny White Grain Mites in Beneful Dog Food Brandon 01:05:41 11/09/2009 (0)
• Re: Tiny White Grain Mites in Beneful Dog Food JO ELLEN TAYLOR 15:48:55 10/27/2009 (1)
• Re: Tiny White Grain Mites in Beneful Dog Food Mcmonkey 00:04:22 10/27/2009 (0)

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