Pedigree: Facts, Recalls & Verified Foods
Pedigree is made by Mars, Incorporated (Mars Petcare), founded 1934 — it scores green on 3 of 4 WSAVA-aligned criteria we track (0 red, 1 undisclosed), 2 FDA recalls on record, and 0 of the 70 Pedigree foods we've verified carry an AAFCO feeding-trial statement.
THE FACTS, ONE SENTENCE — · 70 Pedigree 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.
3 of 4 criteria confirmed yes · 0 confirmed no · 1 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.
Official brand FAQ explicitly states PhD nutritionists on staff; also states formulators include 'PhD/MS animal nutritionists, as well as PhD/MS food scientists.' No individual named, but credential class (PhD nutritionist) is stated. Backed by Mars' Waltham Petcare Science Institute.
source & quote
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Mars Petcare owns/operates the Mattoon plant that produces Pedigree; Mars operates 14+ owned US plants.
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No feeding-trial AAFCO statement found on the 3 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.
658 PubMed-indexed papers carry "Waltham Petcare Science Institute (Mars)" in an author affiliation (animal/pet-domain filtered) — a reproducible floor, not a total.
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 Pedigree
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
Mars, Incorporated (Mars Petcare)
source
Current owner confirmed via fetched Wikipedia lead.
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Founded
1934
source
Brand lineage traces to the 1934 Chappel Brothers/Chappie business; the 'Pedigree' name itself was adopted in the US in 1988 ('In 1988, Kal Kan Foods changed the name of its dog food to Pedigree'). No single unambiguous 'brand founded' year; 1934 is the origin per source, 1988 is the US name adoption.
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Headquarters
McLean, Virginia, U.S.
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This is the Mars, Inc. corporate HQ listed on the brand's Wikipedia infobox.
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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 Pedigree.
High Protein Chopped Chicken & Duck Flavor Wet Dog Food
Potential foreign plastic contamination
Adult Complete Nutrition Grilled Steak & Vegetable Flavor Dry Dog Food
Potential Presence of Loose Metal Pieces
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 Pedigree's labels
Computed directly from the official-label data we've extracted for this brand — never estimated.
Foods verified
70
70 dog
Feeding-trial validated
0
of 70 (0%)
Formulated to meet
0
AAFCO paper calculation
Label transparency
4%
avg. fields disclosed
The foods
Foods from Pedigree we've verified
Every one links to its own Verified Label — guaranteed analysis, AAFCO statement, and (where priced) cost per day.