FDA Warns Pet Owners to Toss Six Lots of Darwin's Raw Pet Food After the Maker Refuses a Recall
The agency found Salmonella in five lots of Darwin's Natural Selections raw pet food and Salmonella plus Listeria monocytogenes in a sixth, then recommended a recall that Arrow Reliance has not carried out.
By Good Company Editorial Desk
The News
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is telling pet owners not to feed six lots of Darwin's Natural Selections raw cat and dog food after its own testing found contamination, and says the company behind the brand has refused to recall the products.
The advisory states that samples from five lots of Darwin's Natural Selections Antibiotic and Grain-Free Chicken Recipe tested positive for Salmonella, and a sixth tested positive for both Salmonella and Listeria monocytogenes. The food is sold frozen in two-pound packages, mainly online through a subscription service.
The FDA says it recommended that Arrow Reliance, Inc., which does business as Darwin's Natural Pet Products, recall all six lots. To date, the firm has not recalled them and could keep distributing them, so the agency is warning consumers directly to check freezers and discard any affected food in a secure container. Owners are also advised to clean and disinfect pet supplies and surfaces the food or pet may have touched, since freezing does not kill Salmonella or Listeria.
The affected lots, all made in July and August 2024: Antibiotic and Grain-Free Chicken Recipe for Cats, Lot 10832 (July 25), Lot 10856 (August 4), and Lot 10890 (August 13); and Antibiotic and Grain-Free Chicken Recipe for Dogs, Lot 10828 (July 24), Lot 10844 (July 30), and Lot 10887 (August 12). Lot codes are printed on the front of the lower left unit of each two-pound package, which holds four.
Why It Matters
An FDA advisory without a company recall is an unusual step, and it is the latest chapter in a years-long standoff between regulators and one of the country's largest direct-to-consumer raw pet food brands. Arrow Reliance has a documented history of not recalling after FDA findings: the agency previously issued do-not-feed advisories for Darwin's lots carrying E. coli O157:H7 and Salmonella, and later for two lots of Darwin's BioLogics dog food, again after the company did not recall.
The stakes go beyond the pets eating the food. The FDA stresses that contaminated raw pet food can make people sick too, citing cases in which pets carrying Salmonella passed it to their human companions without showing symptoms. Severe Salmonella infections can reach the bloodstream, and Listeria endangers pregnant women, newborns, adults over 65, and people with weakened immune systems.
For raw food brands, the episode tests the subscription model's blind spots. Food made in mid-2024 and sold frozen online can still sit in customers' freezers two years later, and a direct-to-consumer company that declines to recall has no retail recall system to fall back on.
The Numbers
Six: the lots of Darwin's Natural Selections named in the advisory, three for cats and three for dogs, made between July 24 and August 13, 2024.
Forty-nine: the consumer complaints the FDA says it received from 2016 through January 2026 involving pets sickened after eating Darwin's raw pet food, according to a Department of Justice complaint filed August 7, 2026.
Nine: the Salmonella isolates from Darwin's samples collected between 2017 and 2025 that, according to the DOJ complaint, genetically match isolates from human clinical samples known to cause human illness.
One: the exact genomic match the FDA reports between a Shiga toxin-producing E. coli strain from a 4-year-old child who developed hemolytic uremic syndrome and the strain in Darwin's pet food the child's family had purchased, as alleged in the same complaint.
What To Watch
The immediate question is whether Arrow Reliance responds the way it has before: by declining to recall. The advisory tells consumers to keep checking Darwin's products for the lot numbers, a signal the agency expects the food may still be in circulation and in freezers.
The longer arc is the federal case. The DOJ complaint alleges that FDA testing of unopened Darwin's packages from a consumer's home found Listeria and Salmonella, that the company agreed only to notify customers about the Listeria, and that the FDA issued a public health advisory because it could not verify that notification. A courtroom fight over whether the company must recall could set a precedent for raw pet food makers that refuse to pull contaminated product.
Also watch the broader raw category. In the same enforcement wave, the FDA posted warning letters to Viva Raw and Raaw Energy, the latter a New Jersey company that stopped production and expanded its recall across a five-month window. Regulators are tightening scrutiny on raw manufacturers, and retailers and subscription brands will be watching how the Darwin's standoff resolves.
Sources
iHeartDogs: Dog And Cat Food Recall Warning To People And Their Pets Nationwide
Lexblog Weekend Wrap-Up covering FDA warning letters to Viva Raw and Raaw Energy