Diamond: Facts, Recalls & Verified Foods
Diamond is made by Schell & Kampeter, Inc. (privately held, family-owned; Diamond Pet Foods is the trade name), founded 1970 — it scores green on 1 of 4 WSAVA-aligned criteria we track (0 red, 3 undisclosed), 7 FDA recalls on record, and 0 of the 7 Diamond foods we've verified carry an AAFCO feeding-trial statement.
THE FACTS, ONE SENTENCE — · 7 Diamond foods in our corpus
The scorecard
WSAVA-aligned criteria
The World Small Animal Veterinary Association's nutrition guidelines suggest four questions to ask any pet food maker before you buy. Most "best dog food" sites skip straight to ingredient vibes and star ratings — we publish the actual answers instead, each sourced, or marked honestly undisclosed when we can't confirm it.
1 of 4 criteria confirmed yes · 0 confirmed no · 3 undisclosed. Undisclosed is common, especially for smaller brands — it means we couldn't confirm an answer from a public source, not that the answer is unfavorable.
Diamond states it uses an internal team spanning veterinary medicine and companion-animal nutrition disciplines, but does not name a specific individual or state a board certification for any staff member on this or other pages found. Cannot confirm true or false with a real source, so left null rather than guessed.
source & quote
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Facilities are described as Diamond's own in Meta, Missouri (HQ); Gaston, South Carolina; Lathrop, California; Ripon, California; Dumas, Arkansas; Frontenac, Kansas; and Rushville, Indiana. Diamond Pet Foods is well known industry-wide as a company that owns and operates its own plants rather than co-packing.
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No feeding-trial AAFCO statement found on the 8 labels we’ve verified for this brand, and no company-wide claim was found either. Most pet foods are only "formulated to meet" AAFCO profiles (a paper calculation) rather than fed to real animals in trials — this is common, not necessarily a red flag.
71 PubMed-indexed papers carry this brand's name in an author affiliation — but without a recognized pet-nutrition research arm we can't confirm these are the company's own studies rather than unrelated name matches (surnames, the taxonomic family "Canidae", institutions). We don't count it as confirmed research.
source
These four checks come from WSAVA's global nutrition guidelines for evaluating a pet food manufacturer — not our own opinion score. Read our full methodology →
The company
Who makes Diamond
Ownership and history, each sourced independently — private-label and co-packed brands often hide the actual manufacturer behind the name on the bag.
Parent company
Schell & Kampeter, Inc. (privately held, family-owned; Diamond Pet Foods is the trade name)
source
Diamond Pet Foods' legal parent entity is Schell & Kampeter, Inc. Corroborated by diamondpetcompany.com/our-history/, which states the second generation of the Schell and Kampeter families still own and operate the company — founded by brothers-in-law Gary Schell and Richard Kampeter. Unlike 4health (a Tractor Supply private label manufactured by Diamond), here Diamond Pet Foods/Schell & Kampeter is itself the brand owner.
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Founded
1970
source
Official company history page states the founding year directly.
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Headquarters
Meta, Missouri, USA
source
Meta, MO is the founding location and remains the headquarters; the company also operates additional plants elsewhere (see wsava.owns_manufacturing).
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The safety record
FDA recall history
Joined from the FDA's own Animal & Veterinary recall feed (2019–present) plus curated pre-2019 records — the same live-checked feed as our full recall database, filtered to Diamond.
All Taste of the Wild dry pet food with a '2' or '3' in the 9th position of the production code and an 'X' in the 10th or 11th position (best-before Dec 9, 2012 - Apr 7, 2013); part of the nine-brand Gaston, SC plant recall
Potential Salmonella contamination at the Gaston, SC plant; the plant's output was linked to a multistate outbreak of human Salmonella Infantis infections
All 4health dry pet food (Tractor Supply house brand) with a '2' or '3' in the 9th position of the production code and an 'X' in the 10th or 11th position (best-before Dec 9, 2012 - Apr 7, 2013); part of the nine-brand Gaston, SC plant recall
Potential Salmonella contamination at the Gaston, SC plant; the plant's output was linked to a multistate outbreak of human Salmonella Infantis infections
Kirkland Signature Super Premium dog and cat foods (Adult Dog Lamb, Rice & Vegetable; Adult Dog Chicken, Rice & Vegetable; Mature Dog Chicken, Rice & Egg; Healthy Weight Dog; Maintenance Cat; Healthy Weight Cat) and Kirkland Signature Nature's Domain Salmon Meal & Sweet Potato for Dogs (best-before Dec 9, 2012 - Jan 31, 2013)
Potential Salmonella contamination at the Gaston, SC plant; the plant's output was linked to a multistate outbreak of human Salmonella Infantis infections
All dry pet food of these four brands with a '2' or '3' in the 9th position of the production code and an 'X' in the 10th or 11th position (best-before Dec 9, 2012 - Apr 7, 2013); the remaining brands of the nine-brand Gaston, SC plant recall
Potential Salmonella contamination at the Gaston, SC plant; the plant's output was linked to a multistate outbreak of human Salmonella Infantis infections
Dry Dog Food - All Life Stages, Chicken Meal & Rice, Lamb Meal & Rice, Platinum (all sizes; specific production codes, Best Before Dec 9 2012-Jan 31 2013)
Precautionary recall after co-packer Diamond Pet Foods found potential Salmonella contamination at its Gaston, South Carolina plant - no Canidae product tested positive and no illnesses were reported
All varieties and sizes of Diamond and Diamond Naturals dry dog and cat food produced at the Gaston, SC plant
Salmonella contamination linked to at least 14 human illnesses across 9 states
Multiple Diamond-brand dry dog and cat food formulas containing a contaminated corn ingredient
Aflatoxin contamination; FDA investigation found inadequate aflatoxin testing across 12 shipments of corn, with more than 100 dog deaths reported
Join of data/recalls.json (FDA Animal & Veterinary recall feed, 2019-present) + data/recalls_historical.json. This is NOT a complete lifetime recall history; recalls predating 2019 (or absent from the FDA datatable) are not represented unless curated in recalls_historical.json.
The corpus
What we've verified from Diamond's labels
Computed directly from the official-label data we've extracted for this brand — never estimated.
Foods verified
7
6 dog · 1 cat
Feeding-trial validated
0
of 7 (0%)
Formulated to meet
7
AAFCO paper calculation
Label transparency
70%
avg. fields disclosed
The foods
Foods from Diamond we've verified
Every one links to its own Verified Label — guaranteed analysis, AAFCO statement, and (where priced) cost per day.