The Food and Drug Administration is warning pet owners not to feed two lots of Darwin's Natural Pet Products Natural Selections Chicken Recipe for Cats, after testing found Salmonella in the food. A consumer complaint linked the product to two sick cats, one of which needed hospitalization. The company has so far declined to recall the affected lots.
What the FDA found and why it matters
The FDA recommended that Arrow Reliance Inc., which does business as Darwin's Natural Pet Products, recall two product lots that tested positive for Salmonella. The bacteria can cause illness in animals, and it can also spread to people who handle contaminated food, bowls, or surfaces. In this case, the complaint describes two cats that became ill after eating the food. Both recovered after they stopped eating it.
Raw pet food is a particular concern because it is not cooked before it reaches the bowl. Pathogens that a cooking step would normally kill can survive in raw meat, so manufacturers depend on preventive controls to keep them out of the product in the first place.
Which products are affected
The FDA identified the affected food by its label information. Check for these two lots:
- Darwin's Natural Pet Products Natural Selections Chicken Recipe for Cats, Lot 12731, MFG Date: Jul 08, 2026
- Darwin's Natural Pet Products Natural Selections Chicken Recipe for Cats, Lot 12493, MFG Date: Apr 02, 2026
The labels do not carry an expiration date, so a date-based check will not help. Darwin's sells the food frozen through an online subscription service, in 2-pound packages divided into four units. Because the packages can stay in a freezer for a long time, FDA advises owners to check their freezers for these lots before feeding any more to pets.
What owners should do now
The FDA advises consumers to throw away any implicated food in a sealed, secure container, so pets and wildlife cannot get to it. Bowls, feeding mats, freezer shelves, and any other pet supplies or surfaces that touched the food should be cleaned and sanitized. Wash hands thoroughly after handling the food or cleaning up. If a cat shows signs of illness after eating this product, contact a veterinarian promptly and tell the clinic about the recent diet.
A pattern of contamination and legal action
This is not the first problem linked to Darwin's products. According to the FDA's supplied context, the company has been found to have contaminated products six times since 2023, and there were earlier instances of pathogens in its foods. In 2024, FDA investigators found Salmonella at the company's Tukwila, Washington, manufacturing facility. From 2016 through January 2026, the agency received 49 consumer complaints about sick pets fed Darwin's raw food, including 34 dogs, five of which died, and 35 cats, four of which died.
In August of this year, the Department of Justice filed a complaint seeking to shut down the manufacturer. It cited a 4-year-old boy who developed kidney failure after contact with the company's food. Third-party testing of the family's unopened pet food found Salmonella and STEC bacteria that matched a sample from the child. The complaint argues that the company violated the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act by failing to follow preventive controls requirements, which led to uncooked pet food becoming adulterated. It asks a court to permanently bar the owner from making and selling raw pet food.
The allegations in that complaint are claims by the government and have not been decided by a court in the material provided. The FDA's test results and complaint records describe what regulators found and reported, and readers should weigh them as such.