Two More Raw Pet Food Recalls Hit the Wire
The AVMA's breaking-news feed is carrying two fresh raw pet food actions: Raaw Energy expanding a recall of dog food over Listeria monocytogenes, and Albright's Raw Pet Food issuing a voluntary recall of a select chicken recipe for dogs in one-pound bricks. Neither is a headline most groomers would stop for. Both should be.
Recalls like these are now a routine feature of the pet-food landscape, and raw diets are heavily represented in them because raw protein is a natural host for Listeria and Salmonella. That matters to a grooming salon for a reason that rarely gets discussed: you are a shared-surface business handling the animals that eat this food.
Why a Dog-Food Recall Is a Grooming Business Story
A dog that eats a contaminated raw diet can shed bacteria in its stool and carry it on its coat, paws and muzzle — and it can do all of that while looking perfectly healthy. Then it comes to you, gets lifted onto a table, bathed in a shared tub, dried, brushed, kenneled, and walked over the same floor as every other pet that day.
Add the human side. Your staff have wet hands in constant contact with coats, faces and rear ends, often with small nicks and abrasions from clippers and shears. Salmonella and Listeria are zoonotic. Groomers are, occupationally, one of the more exposed groups in the pet economy, and almost none of them treat food-safety recalls as relevant to their risk profile.
This is not an argument against raw feeding, and you should not position it that way to clients. It is an argument for a salon that has thought about pathogen control before it needs one.
Build a Salon Biosecurity Plan You Can Actually Follow
The goal is a routine simple enough to survive a busy Saturday.
Zone your space. Bathing, drying, table work and kenneling should have defined cleaning responsibilities. Contaminated water splashes further than people think.
Standardise cleaning between pets, not just at closing. Tub, table, restraint loops, slip leads and dryer nozzles get wiped between animals with a disinfectant that is actually rated for the organisms you care about — and, critically, left on the surface for its full contact time. Most salon disinfection fails on contact time, not product choice.
Wash hands, don't just sanitise them. Alcohol gel is weak against some enteric pathogens. Soap, water and friction after every pet, before every break, and always before eating.
Handle waste like it's infectious. Lined, covered bins; gloves for cleaning accidents; separate mop and bucket for the potty area; and never let that mop tour the bathing zone.
Launder properly. Towels from a pet with diarrhoea go in a separate, hot wash. Not the general pile.
Protect your own team. Aprons that get changed, not aprons that get worn through Friday. Cover cuts before you start.
Add Two Questions to Your Intake Form
Your intake process should already capture vaccination status and medical conditions. Two additions pay for themselves:
- Does your pet eat a raw or fresh-frozen diet?
- Has your pet had vomiting or diarrhoea in the last 48 hours?
The first is not a judgment — it is a flag to bump that pet to a later slot, use extra care around the face and rear, and disinfect thoroughly afterwards. The second is your sick-pet policy trigger, and it should be enforced. A gastrointestinal pet in a grooming salon is a bad day for everyone.
Store the answers where your team sees them at check-in. If you use a grooming CRM, put diet and recent-illness flags on the pet profile, not buried in a paper file in a drawer.
Use Recalls as a Client-Communication Asset
Here is the opportunity most salons miss. When a recall like this lands, you can be the business that tells your clients about it first.
A short, neutral message works best: the products affected, where to check official recall notices, what symptoms to watch for, and a line encouraging them to call their vet with questions. No alarmism, no lecture about raw diets, no product recommendations you are not qualified to make.
If your system lets you segment — and it should — send it to the clients who flagged raw feeding on intake. A targeted message to fifty relevant owners is worth more than a mass blast to a thousand.
Document Everything
Cleaning logs, sick-pet refusals, intake disclosures. If a client ever claims their pet picked something up at your salon, a dated cleaning schedule and a signed intake form are the difference between a conversation and a claim.
The Real Takeaway
Recall notices are a free, recurring reminder to check whether your salon's hygiene is a written system or a set of habits. Habits erode under pressure. Systems don't. Spend an hour this week writing yours down, walk your team through it, and set a calendar reminder to review it every quarter — because there will be another recall, and probably soon.