General Mills to buy pet food maker Blue Buffalo for $8B | Hacker News Reader

General Mills to buy pet food maker Blue Buffalo for $8B

reuters.com

64 pointsfiveFeet57 comments

We give our large breed dog Limited Ingredient (by Blue Buffalo) specifically because it doesn't contain grains and other irritants. Maybe I'm being overly cynical, but I'm concerned that General Mills ownership will decrease the quality of the ingredients, and we'll have to find another brand, which has always proved to be a tricky, extended process of trial and error, where the "error" leads to your dog losing weight and having diarrhea.

(1) I had a similar long trial-and-error process with my dog

(2) Blue Buffalo has been growing extremely quickly over the past decade. The company went IPO in 2015 IIRC. I highly suspect the cost cutting on ingredients has already begun.

(3) Blue Buffalo already sells lines which contain "grains and other irritants". I tried giving my dog "Wilderness" (the highest protein content with the least grain/filler) but it was too rich for him. For a while, I settled on a Blue Buffalo Life Protection which was cut with oatmeal, a grain.

Try Taste of the Wild, may be what you are looking for.

I’ve been feeding both of my dogs this for years. They love it!

We rotate between the yellow, purple and red bags (forget the names). The dogs favorite seem to be yellow.

We get it from Chewy.com. It’s the same price as my local dog kennel that carries it.

Victor is another very good brand. The site https://www.dogfoodadvisor.com/ does provide a good breakdown of what it is in many dog foods

Not sure how easy it is to find outside of boutique pets stores (just happen to live near a fantastic one that delivers for free) but I highly recommend the Orijen brand. Have tried numerous other “premium” brands with my dogs over the years but no matter which brand I was using, I always managed to run into at least one vet than had less than stellar things to say about brand x, y, or z. Maybe it’s just coincidence but in the 7+ years I’ve been feeding my dogs Orijen I’ve yet to encounter a vet that anything other than positive things to say about the brand.

We switched our large breed from Blue to Fromm’s after the chicken byproduct reports and subsequent lawsuit. From research it seemed similar quality to what I thought Blue was, and is commonly stocked online (Jet.com, Chewy.com) and available at local boutique pet shops if I need to run and pick up a bag.

Why do you think they’ll change the ingredients? They own a number of organic brands already.

I've had zero issues with Kirkland Grain Free dog food from Costco. It costs about $1/pound give or take depending on the protein source (they offer Salmon, Turkey, and Beef). The carbohydrate source is from sweet potato.

I've used this site and their deep analyses to understand what is optimal (according to them): https://www.dogfoodadvisor.com/dog-food-reviews/natures-doma.... They also have a newsletter that emails whenever a recall of dog food/snacks is initiated.

Both of my dogs (smallish breeds) have been able to switch between with minimal effort to transition all that slowly, and their weight has been stable/healthy despite not nearly enough physical activity.

I wonder how long it's going to be until we hear about a direct-to-consumer online pet food store that gives a bag of food to a dog in need for every bag purchased

Why not? It seems like a pretty solid option for a subscription model and they already ask you for money donations when you pay at Petsmart and Petco...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJ8HVWAOTEk

More poking fun at it than saying it's not viable

I've been using the Amazon "subscribe and save" to get Blue Buffalo dog and cat food for a while. A subscription model seems solid, especially as I can't get Blue Buffalo in the grocery store so I have to make a special trip for it. But, maybe with this deal it'll get into more grocery stores?

A lot of those amazon reviews make it look like counterfeit Blue Buffalo is being commingled with the real stuff. Pretty fascinating reviews.

Yeah, given my experience with Amazon purchases over the past year or so, I'm really hesitant to buy any food or dietary products from them, for me or for my dog.

Many food companies will have their own "store" on Amazon and you can purchase from them as a supplier. I assume they have quality control to ensure the food they ship to Amazon is from their warehouses, and I assume that Amazon only ships you that food. I guess it's a lot of assumptions.

My understanding is that Amazon tags similar products with the same SKU despite their source. This allows someone to ship fake inventory in, have amazon fulfill it, and then those products make their way to customers purchasing direct from Amazon. There are cases of this reported by authors and other products

You might be right. I was just looking at some listings to see if I could find any disclaimer but didn't see any. I did find some various suppliers, all similar names but not exact.

If you search for Van Houtte coffees, you get products supplied by "Van Houtte Coffees", "Van Houtte" and "VAN HOUTTE". Clicking on the supplier link two bring you to the same page, the 3rd to a different supplier page. They all look legitimate but there's no way to tell. I'd actually like to see a "Verified" listing by Amazon. I'd much rather buy from a verified supplier to make sure I'm not getting some "off the back of the truck" coffee pods or whatever.

I got counterfeit Hill's Science Diet cat food from Amazon. Their customer service reps refunded me but seemingly did not care whatsoever about the counterfeiting issue. Amazon's value as a marketplace dwindles to me day by day as they don't seem to want to deal with any problems (like counterfeiting) that would require skilled human resources without automation leverage in the short-term. I see where they're going from a strategic standpoint but it makes me do a lot less business than I otherwise would with them.

Our neighborhood supermarket has recently started carrying it, and I've seen it in Target, too. This is good, since the neighborhood Petco closed recently. But yeah, I can't imagine GF paying $8B for a product they weren't going to do mass-market distribution for.

Probably you could nominate your local shelter via smile.amazon.com?

I've seen it in at least one grocery store (I believe HEB, a Texas grocer)

Target started carrying Blue Buffalo this month.

PetSmart sort of does this

Heck... you could probably even feed a person in a lot of parts of the world. Feed your dog well and end hunger!

Not when the local warlord sells the shipment to feed cattle. Most famine is caused by politics. All the food in the world won't solve that.

Ollie (https://www.myollie.com/) gives 1% of their revenue to shelters and rescues.

Given how underserved animal shelters seem to be, and how passionate many pet owners are about animal welfare, this wouldn't be a bad idea at all.

Sounds like you have a business idea.

Virtue signaling in marketing and as a business is a hot trend right now.

The big food conglomerates have been buying up pet food makers for decades. Gives a convenient place to dump all the leftovers from their human food production.

Best option is to find a maker that still only makes pet food, or take the old fashioned approach and feed the dog raw bones and leftovers.

(you generally should not feed your dog bones, they can splinter and lodge in the dog's throat)

Only if cooked first, as they become brittle. So cooked chicken bones would be especially risky. Raw bones are generally fine - they break into small pieces. Larger marrow bones they can only gnaw at of course.

curious: if the bones aren't cooked, isn't the pet spreading bacteria with (possible) resistance to antibiotics throughout the entire house?

I never could understand how people have pets indoors anyway. Would you sit on chairs that other humans sat on bare-bottomed after going for a number 2?

Generally we encourage the dogs to keep the bones outside, or in the kitchen, and mop the floor after. Not that it needs much - they usually munch wherever it lands!

The sound of a couple of German Shepherds crunching up their bones means you probably don't want them doing this right by the sofa during a movie. After an hour or so all that's left of a big marrow bone is entirely cleaned, and the smaller stuff is gone completely. So we've never found it an issue.

I imagine we and the children, especially when they were younger, spread as much as any salmonella loaded paw prints. :)

When we give our dogs raw bones, we make them eat them on blankets that we only use for this activity and we then wash them.

Generally though, unless contaminated at the slaughter house, bones should be generally free of bacteria since it's just muscle, fat, ligaments and bone. All of which should be sterile at time of death.

My guess is the effect isn't very significant. Are there studies showing disease versus pet ownership? People are far more "clean" today than in the past and I wonder how much our high standards for cleanliness make a difference. Some people feed their cats raw chicken intentionally. Dogs get into all sorts of things outside (carcasses, feces, etc) they can bring into a house. Personally, when I am backpacking or caving, I will eat food with dirty hands (as in caked in dirt and mud) and don't get sick from it. I occasionally drink untreated water as well, but typically try to avoid it from giardia risk.

I feed my dog(s) a raw/whole prey diet, things like ground lamb/duck/etc I generally freeze first. For things like knuckles or chicken feet or whole rabbit I just feed him outside.

It has been a long time since chickens had bones; they are grown so fast these days that they barely have any mineralisation of their cartilage.

I feed my purebred English bulldog:

He started off on royal cabin puppy bulldog blend.

Then I was a little smarter, and fed Origin.

Origin I found was true protein rich. Switched to Acanna, which is actuallyade by same people as origin, just less protein.

Tried fromms, taste of the wild.

Then nutrience grain free with freeze dried meat.

I have used this a few times inbetween, but now back on it. Zignature Kangaroo formula.

https://www.zignature.com/?portfolio=kangaroo-formula-dry&la...

With my dogs allergies and gastro issues, this has been the best.

Hypoallergenic meat first recipe, with no Corn, grains, Wheat, Soy, Dairy, or Chicken, Chicken Eggs, or Chicken By-Products.

My Dog is allergic to chicken, suprised how much chicken meal is in alot of dog foods.

They pet store basically said: "has your dog ever had kangaroo? unlikely, and its only meat in it.)

So I tried it, maybe not the absolute most favorite of my dog, but he still enjoys it and it's been the best for him.

Never tried blue origin, likely won't now, my wife' heart always dropped watching the commercials telling the history of blue the dog and the resulting company in memory

You might try Nature's Select. My great dane is allergic to almost every traditional protein except fish, so he's on a diet of wild salmon and sweet potatoes.

http://naturalpetfooddelivery.com/select-cold-water-recipe/

I still find it disturbing how much breakfast cereal is made by dog food companies.

I, for one, love Crackling Oat Bran.

As do we. True story - our kids always called C.O.B. "cat food".

Bachelor Chow, it's good for you, and your pets too!

I don't wanna be the "why is this on HN" guy, and I certainly don't mind that it's here, but I really don't see any possible hacker angle here. I'm not complaining, I'm just puzzled.

People interested in this topic might want to check out the Skept Vet's web site:

http://skeptvet.com/Blog/

The site is run by a veterinarian who "takes a skeptical and science-based look at veterinary medicine". There's a strong bias towards evidence based research over junk/pseudo-science (which should appeal to a lot of HN'ers), and I've learned a lot from reading his blog.

My dogs pooped blood when we tried giving them Blue Buffalo

The "n of 1" is not very useful from a statistical standpoint.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N_of_1_trial

That typically means you gave them too much too fast. It's best for their digestive system to very slowly ease them into the new food. A few kibbles (or partial teaspoons if wet) mixed into their old food at first, and then gradually increase over two weeks, until the new food completely offsets the old food.

"Hacker News" this is not. I hate to be the guy saying "why is this article on here" but I do miss the stuff that used to be on this site :(

HN members—you included—help curate the content of this site. If you think a submission is inappropriate, flag it. Likewise, upvote and submit the types of articles you'd like to see. Help make HN the site you want it to be.

It must be of some interest to the entrepreneurial-minded folks on HN. An East Coast company that started in 2012 [0] gets a $8B buyout -- and unless I'm missing something, it doesn't even have a Wikipedia page. Reminds me of stories about all the tech startups started by non-teenagers/non-dropouts whose big exits (some near unicorn-level) don't get much attention because their origin stories or their business plan don't sound as sexy as the archetypical Silicon Valley startup myth.

[0] https://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.a...

Yeah I hear you, I’m just missing the stuff I used to find here - little cool libraries, new ways of doing things, stuff people made.

So much of what’s upvoted now are just the contents of the business section of any major newspaper.

I can’t speak for everyone, but I find the business, political, and social posts far more valuable than any technical post about a library, framework, or new abstraction.

Very few people change the world with code. It’s either soft skills or business acumen.

I always liked articles like this on HN, since it shows you don't always have to start a business in a sexy area like neural nets or autonomous driving to be successful.

"On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Internet,_nobody_knows_...

Holy crap, it's 24.5 years old! (171 dog-years.)

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