Case Study: Handling pet food recalls with a full suite of services

In today’s consumer landscape, pet food recalls are no longer operational events, they are reputational inflection points. When a product carries a celebrity endorsement, the stakes rise exponentially. The upside of brand visibility is matched by the velocity of reputational risk. Consumers increasingly view pets as family, and social media platforms amplify sentiment in real time. Meanwhile, regulators apply the same rigorous standards to pet food as they do to human food, demanding traceability, transparency, and demonstrable remediation.

In this environment, recall programs must evolve beyond containment. They must become strategic trust-building initiatives—designed to restore consumer confidence, protect adjacent product lines, and deliver auditable outcomes that satisfy both regulatory and retail stakeholders.

When a nationally prominent pet food manufacturer faced a high-profile recall within a celebrity-endorsed product line, Sedgwick Brand Protection delivered a unified, strategy-led response that preserved brand integrity, ensured compliance, and maintained operational continuity.

Challenge

Celebrity association multiplied exposure and operational complexity. A nationally prominent manufacturer discovered elevated levels of vitamin D in several wet cat food SKUs within a celebrity-endorsed line and initiated a voluntary nationwide recall. The incident required immediate removal of product from a broad retail footprint while protecting other brands in the manufacturer’s portfolio and minimizing disruption to normal operations.

Media and social channels intensified scrutiny, increasing the risk of rapid reputational escalation. The product’s extensive retail distribution across big‑box retailers, regional supermarkets and independent pet stores required tightly coordinated field action. The manufacturer’s shared operational infrastructure created the potential for collateral disruption to parallel brands. Regulators and retail partners expected transparent, audit‑ready records and demonstrable, on‑the‑ground proof that remediation had been completed.

Solution

The manufacturer engaged Sedgwick Brand Protection to lead a single, unified programme combining consumer engagement, retail execution, reverse logistics and regulatory compliance. The response reframed the recall as a continuity, communications and remediation programme delivered through an integrated command structure rather than as discrete tasks.

Primary elements delivered:

• Centralized command and control with a single decisioning hub to align communications, field operations, logistics and compliance and eliminate inter-vendor friction. 
• Scalable consumer and retailer engagement to preserve normal customer service channels and ensure consistent, empathetic messaging across all touchpoints.  
• Targeted retail effectiveness operations to verify removal, mitigate residual shelf risk and prevent reintroduction into the supply chain.  
• Secure reverse logistics and disposition for recovered inventory with strict chain of custody, inventorying and regulatory-compliant destruction or reuse pathways.  
• Media and regulator playbook to proactively manage narratives, protect adjacent brands and provide regulators with timely, verifiable documentation.

Operational tactics:

• Rapidly deployed a dedicated call-center operation to field consumer and retailer calls, administer reimbursements and dispatch replacement offers.  
• Notified direct retail accounts and coordinated managed returns or in-field destruction for product not removed on first visit.  
• Conducted nationwide on-site effectiveness checks at 2,500 locations with tiered follow-up for remediation and proof-of-completion reporting.

Results

Sedgwick Brand Protection were able to restore trust while preserving business continuity. The integrated, strategy-led response achieved measurable operational results and protected long-term brand equity:

• Consistent stakeholder experience with coordinated outreach that prevented overload of the manufacturer’s primary customer-care channels and reduced consumer frustration.  
• Demonstrable market remediation through systematic on-site verification and follow-up that materially reduced residual product risk.  
• Portfolio protection by isolating recall activity and preserving production and distribution continuity across other brands.  
• Regulatory readiness and transparency with complete chain-of-custody records, inventory manifests and retailer verification logs to support inspections and reporting obligations.
• Reduced churn and restored confidence among retail partners through proactive logistics coordination and predictable, documented remediation timelines.

Key takeaways

• Operate the recall as a strategic trust programme where communications, verification and remediation are central to preserving brand equity.  
• Engage a single integrated partner to reduce coordination risk, accelerate containment and ensure message discipline across channels.  
• Prioritize field verification because proof of removal is the single strongest safeguard against lingering marketplace exposure and regulatory escalation.  
• Protect commercial continuity by insulating routine operations and other brands from recall activity to minimize unnecessary financial and supply disruptions.  
• Document relentlessly to provide regulators and retail partners with auditable evidence that remediation was effective and compliant.

About Sedgwick Brand Protection

Brand and reputation are the most valuable and vulnerable assets a business has. Brands embody everything a business does, and its customers expect. 

Nothing says more about a company’s commitment to its customers than its efforts to uphold promises of safety, quality, and service. That’s why companies are often remembered more for how they handle an in-market challenge than for the problem itself. We know what it takes to manage recalls in a way that upholds your commitments to customers, supply chain partners, and regulators. 

Trusted by the world’s leading brands and businesses, Sedgwick Brand Protection works in partnership to manage the risks and minimize the impacts of in-market business and product crises. Since 1995, we have managed more than 7,000 of the most sensitive and time-critical product recall and remediation programs, spanning 150+ countries and 50+ languages. 

To discover more about our product recall and incident response solutions, visit: https://www.sedgwick.com/product-recall

2,500

retail locations verified

Full

call‑center

support for retailer and consumer reimbursement and replacement offers

Single

integrated partner managing communications, logistics and disposition