Hill's Pet Nutrition
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Hill's Pet Nutrition, Inc is a subsidiary of Colgate-Palmolive Company. They are a large scale provider of dog and cat foods.
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[edit] History
Hill's Pet Nutrition was a division of Hill Packing company, founded in 1907 by Burton Hill in Topeka, Kansas. Hill Packing originally sold Hill's dog food and was the second dog food manufacturer to can dog food. Hill Packaging company had two slaughtering buildings. One was a government-inspected plant that processed horse meat for human consumption. The second plant processed mules, donkeys, and diseased horses as well as waste from the other plant to make dog food.
In 1948, a New Jersey veterinarian Mark Morris Sr. of Raritan Animal Hospital approached Hill Packing company with a dog food diet for dogs with kidney problems. It was called K/D (Kidney Diet). The dog food market was very competitive, and most of the profits were being made in the horse meat division. Mr. Davis, then Vice President of Hill packing company, thought that this would be a profitable product, and a business relationship was started with Mark Morris Sr. Originally, he was paid a royalty of approximately five cents per pound of pet food. The K/D diet was the start of the Prescription Diet brand. In 1968 the Science Diet brand of over the counter pet foods was introduced.
Even though they were the first company to provide specialized nutrition choices for dogs and cats, the company never had much more than a niche market until 1976 when Colgate-Palmolive acquired their parent company, Riviana Foods, which had purchased Hill Packing company a few years earlier from the Hill Family. At first, Colgate considered selling Hill's because it did not fit in with the company's core products, but the chairman-to-be of the company, Reuben Mark, put forth an ambitious plan to turn Hill's into a global pet food supplier and the company was spared.
Today, Hill's is the largest employer of veterinarians outside of academia. They sponsor many pet nutrition related veterinary school programs and hold seminars and training sessions on the subject of pet nutrition for practicing veterinarians. Their Prescription Diet line of foods is available from veterinarians throughout much of the world, and the Science Diet line of cat and dog foods are available in pet specialty stores and veterinary clinics.
[edit] Prescription Diet
Hill's has a large line of prescription foods for cats and dogs with specific diseases. Prescription diet dry and canned food is only available through a vet or pet pharmacy (such as Banfield in PetSmart stores). Prescription diet food replaces all other food until the disease is cleared or for the rest of the pet's life if it is chronic.
[edit] Hill's prescription diet cat products
a/d - Accident recovery, weight gain
c/d - Feline lower urinary tract disease and adult cat maintenance diet
d/d - Allergic Skin Reactions
g/d - Geriatric Diet
h/d - Heart Disease
i/d - Gastrointestinal diseases
k/d - Kidney disease
l/d - Liver disease
m/d - Weight loss and diabetes management
r/d - Obesity or hyperlipidemia
s/d - Struvite crystals
t/d - Dental disease and tartar prevention
w/d - Weight control for specific problems
x/d - Oxalate crystals
z/d - Food allergy
[edit] Involvement in 2007 Pet Food Recalls
On March 30, 2007, Hill's Pet Nutrition announced that it was voluntarily recalling a specialized dry cat food, "Prescription Diet m/d dry only", because it contained the same wheat gluten implicated in the recalls of pet food manufactured by Menu Foods [1] The recalled food is sold through veterinarians for cats with obesity or diabetes.
[edit] External links
[edit] References
- Parker-Pope, Tara, (November 3, 1997). "Why Vets Recommend 'Designer' Chow". The Wall Street Journal.
