FDA flags two Darwin’s cat food lots after Salmonella testing and cat illness
The FDA is warning pet owners not to feed two lots of Darwin’s Natural Pet Products Natural Selections Chicken Recipe for Cats after laboratory testing found Salmonella in samples linked to a consumer complaint. The alert carries immediate household implications because the products were sold frozen, may still be sitting in freezers, and have no expiration date on the label. One cat was hospitalized after eating food from one of the affected lots, and both cats recovered after the products were stopped.
The affected lots are 12731, with a manufacturing date of Jul 08, 2026, and 12493, with a manufacturing date of Apr 02, 2026. Both are Darwin’s Natural Pet Products Natural Selections Chicken Recipe for Cats. The packages were sold in frozen 2-pound white and clear plastic packaging with green and black labeling, divided into four separate units, and the lot code appears on the front of the lower left unit. For pet owners sorting through stored food, that placement matters because the code may be easy to miss when packages are partially opened or separated.
Discarding the food is not enough if the household has already handled it. Bowls, storage containers, utensils, food-prep surfaces, bedding, toys, floors, and any other surface touched by the food or the pet need thorough cleaning and disinfection, including refrigerators and freezers where the product may have been stored. Pet feces in yards, parks, or other shared spaces should also be cleaned up promptly because the organism can persist in the environment long enough to expose people and other animals.
Why a contaminated cat food lot becomes a household problem
Salmonella is not confined to the animal that ate the food. Pets can become infected, show few or no signs of illness, and still shed bacteria in feces and saliva, contaminating the home and creating a route of exposure for people. That is the core public health concern in this advisory: a single tainted food lot can move from a pet bowl to hands, countertops, clothing, floors, and water bowls, then into the human environment.
The biology is straightforward. Once a pet ingests contaminated food, the bacteria can colonize the gastrointestinal tract and be shed even when the animal appears well. Freezing does not destroy Salmonella, so a product stored safely in a freezer can still remain infectious when thawed and served later. A frozen raw or minimally processed product also creates more handling opportunities during thawing, portioning, and cleaning, which increases the chance of spread in the household.
Humans exposed to Salmonella can develop diarrhea, fever, and abdominal cramps. Most people recover without treatment, but severe diarrhea can require hospitalization, and the infection may spread from the intestines into the bloodstream and other body sites if it is not treated promptly. Young children, older adults, and people with weakened immune systems face greater risk. A pet food recall therefore becomes more than a veterinary issue; it can become a foodborne illness event in a shared living space.
Symptoms in pets and the practical bedside risk for owners
Cats do not always show obvious illness after exposure, which can make contaminated food especially deceptive. When signs do appear, they can include vomiting, diarrhea, sometimes bloody diarrhea, fever, loss of appetite, and decreased activity. Those symptoms should trigger a veterinary evaluation because the same clinical syndrome can reflect either direct infection or dehydration and secondary complications from gastrointestinal disease.
People handling contaminated food or caring for a symptomatic pet should watch for the human symptom pattern as well: diarrhea, fever, and abdominal cramps. The advisory directs people with compatible symptoms to contact a healthcare provider. For families, the practical issue is often timing and overlap—people may clean litter boxes, wash bowls, or prepare new food before realizing the original product was contaminated. Every one of those steps can seed bacteria across the home if hand hygiene and surface cleaning are incomplete.
Consumers who still have the affected product should stop feeding it immediately and throw it away in a secure container where wildlife and other animals cannot access it. The food should not be donated. If the lot code cannot be read or the packaging panel containing it is missing, the product should still be discarded. Because the food was sold through a subscription service, some owners may not realize an affected lot is already in the home.
Regulatory response and what the FDA is asking from the firm
The FDA recommended that Arrow Reliance, Inc., doing business as Darwin’s Natural Pet Products, recall the two positive lots. The agency says the firm has not initiated an adequate recall of the affected products. In regulatory terms, that leaves the burden on consumers to identify and remove the food from circulation quickly.
The Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act requires animal foods to be safe to eat, produced under sanitary conditions, free of harmful substances, and truthfully labeled. This advisory reflects those standards in action: a finished product tested positive for a pathogen that can sicken animals and people, and the label information remains central to tracing exposure back to the correct lots. The problem is not theoretical. The food has already been associated with illness in cats, and the contaminated product may still be in household freezers because the packages lack an expiration date.
For veterinarians and clinicians, the case is a reminder that pet food exposures belong in the differential when a household cluster presents with gastroenteritis. Reported illness after contaminated pet food should be directed first to a veterinarian, while complaints about pet food products can be submitted through the FDA Safety Reporting Portal. Those reports help document patterns that may otherwise remain hidden when symptoms resolve quickly or never become severe enough to prompt formal testing.
The exposure window remains open inside home freezers
The most immediate danger is not a supermarket shelf; it is a freezer drawer, where a product can sit unchanged until someone opens it for a routine meal. Every step after that—thawing, portioning, serving, cleaning, litter disposal, and handwashing—creates opportunities for spread if the contaminated food is not removed first. For households with children, immunocompromised adults, or elderly family members, this advisory deserves the same attention given to any other foodborne contamination event.