22nd January 2010 - Daily Mail; pet food advertising; Cadbury

Daily Mail; pet food advertising; Cadbury

The big news story for us this week has been the Daily Mail piece about poor quality pet food and the effect on health. Except that it is not news. This is more a hardy perennial slanted to promote the prejudices of a very small number of raw food zealots. I wouldn’t mind if they simply said that they feed raw food and it works for them and their pets. But they don’t. They endlessly recycle their theory about raw food which I am not going to repeat here. It’s in my Guide to Natural Health Care. They never engage with the objections to the raw food theory or the science which refutes their beliefs.

As I wrote the other day, pet owners themselves must shoulder some responsibility for their pet’s health. Now that would be a news story.

In that vein, you may recall advertising on the lines of “Eight out of ten cats prefer…” The decision on what food to give is being made, not by a human but by a cat.

Talking of advertising and in the light of the recent furore over irresponsible dog breeding practices, I expect it will be a while before we see an pet food advert which says “Top Breeders recommend it”.

The sale of Cadbury highlights once more that everything in Britain is up for sale and, thanks to the weak pound, at a knockdown price. It also demonstrates that the shareholders’ interests are paramount, rather than employees, customers or the wider public. That’s bad enough, but it gets worse. As soon as word of a possible buyout gets out, short term investors buy shares in order to promote the sell off and run off with a quick profit. What a way to run an economy.

John Burns

22nd January -Daily Mail; pet food advertising; Cadbury

Daily Mail; pet food advertising; Cadbury

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