Hill's Science Diet Small & Toy Breed Adult Chicken & Barley Entree

We love dog food brands that are committed to transparent business practices. If you make quality dog food you should be willing to openly talk about how it’s sourced and produced. That’s why we reached out to pet food companies, asking questions about all their brands and products. Each company had three weeks to reply to our messages.

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How Easy Was it to Reach the Company?

Hills is owned by Colgate-Palmolive, and responded to the first email in 3 days, but provided incomplete answers and suggested a phone call. Depending on the context of the question, this could be seen as helpful or it could be seen as a hurdle to receive an answer. The answers below are a combination of both email and phone responses and will be clear where the info came from. Since the call was not recorded, the responses received from the call has been paraphrased - they should not be seen as exact statements from the company.

‍Does Hills have a veterinary nutritionist on staff? If so, who are they?‍‍‍

(email response)
More than 150 veterinarians, food scientists, technicians and PhD nutritionists at Hill's develop Science Diet® and Prescription Diet® brand pet foods to meet the needs of your pet when it's well or when it's sick.

(Phone response)
Can't share the names of these professionals for privacy reasons.

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Who formulates your recipes, and what are their credentials?‍‍‍

See the previous answer.  

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Do you test your products using AAFCO feeding trials? Why, or why not?‍‍‍

(email response)
Each ingredient is analyzed to ensure its safety before it is included in the food your pet eats. We analyze our products' ingredient profile for over 50 nutrients and conduct feeding trials to ensure your pets get the precise nutrition they need.We do utilize feeding trials,  While some of our Science Diet® products were launched "as formulated", the feeding trials will continue in the background and labels will be adjusted as the trials are completed.

(phone response)

We do utilize the AAFCO feeding trials, the info will be on the bag.

What country are your products manufactured?‍‍‍

(email response)
We make every bag of our dry pet food in our own US facilities with highest quality natural ingredients from North America and Europe. These ingredients must meet our strict requirements for purity and nutrient content, which exceed industry standards.

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Can your manufacturing facilities be visited?‍‍‍

(email response)

With our manufacturing facilities, we do not have tours.

What quality measures do you use to assure consistency and quality?‍‍‍

(email response)
We maintain the highest standards of quality control for our manufacturing facilities, our ingredients, and our finished products. We source meat and poultry ingredients from USDA inspected plants. As part of a vigorous vendor certification program, vendors must check raw ingredients before shipment to our manufacturing facilities.

Frequent inspections of our suppliers, analytical testing of incoming ingredients, and testing of our finished products all confirm our commitment to quality. Also, Hill's® demands compliance with current Good Manufacturing Practices (cGMP) and Hill's high quality standards, so your pet's food is produced under clean and sanitary conditions.

The pet food industry is highly regulated in the U.S. by the USDA, FDA and state departments of agriculture. Additionally, Hill's® is a member of the Pet Food Institute, a trade industry organization that works to maintain high quality standards in pet food manufacturing.

‍Does Hills own its manufacturing facility? If it is another company, what company is it?‍‍‍

(phone response)
We own our manufacturing facilities, we do not outsource production.

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Do any parts of your product come from China?‍‍‍

(phone response)
Taurine and L-carnitine