What was recalled
On December 30, 2020, Midwestern Pet Foods, Inc. announced an initial recall of certain SportMix lots after FDA received reports of at least 28 dog deaths and 8 dogs sickened after consuming the products (see our separate SportMix 2020 aflatoxin recall page). On January 11, 2021, Midwestern expanded the recall to include additional products containing corn produced at the company’s Oklahoma manufacturing plant: SportMix, Pro Pac, and Nunn dry pet food and Splash Fat Cat fish food. The expansion ultimately covered over 1,000 lots of product.
Midwestern Pet Foods is the manufacturer of multiple consumer-facing brands including Earthborn, ProPac, SportMix, CanineX, Venture, Unrefined, and Wholesomes; the January 2021 expansion swept multiple of these brands into the scope. As of January 21, 2021, FDA documented more than 130 pet deaths and more than 210 pets sick from the recalled products. Aflatoxin levels in the affected pet foods reached up to 558 parts per billion (ppb) per testing by the Missouri Department of Agriculture, Office of the Texas State Chemist, and FDA — nearly 28 times the FDA action level of 20 ppb. FDA issued a company-wide warning letter to Midwestern Pet Foods on August 9, 2021, addressing systemic quality-systems failures across the manufacturer’s multiple plants.
Why it was recalled
Aflatoxins are mycotoxins produced by Aspergillus flavus and Aspergillus parasiticus molds that grow on corn during warm-humid growing or storage conditions. The 2020 U.S. corn-belt growing season produced elevated aflatoxin loads across the Southeast and Midwest, and Midwestern Pet Foods’ Oklahoma plant received corn shipments with aflatoxin contamination above safe levels. The FDA inspection that drove the August 2021 warning letter documented multiple quality-systems failures at the Oklahoma plant: inadequate incoming-corn mycotoxin testing protocols, deficient finished-product testing, gaps in raw-ingredient supplier qualification, and insufficient documentation of corrective actions after earlier ingredient quality concerns. The warning letter explicitly characterized the failures as company-wide rather than isolated to one plant, citing similar deficiencies at Midwestern’s other production facilities. FDA’s warning letters carry significant enforcement weight: companies that fail to satisfactorily address warning-letter findings risk seizure, injunction, and criminal prosecution. Midwestern Pet Foods implemented company-wide remediation including new incoming-corn testing protocols, expanded environmental monitoring, and stricter supplier qualification — though several class-action lawsuits filed by affected pet owners continued through 2022-2024.
Health risks for your pet
Acute aflatoxicosis in dogs presents within days of high-dose exposure as vomiting, anorexia, profound lethargy, jaundice (yellow gums and eyes), dark urine, and acute liver failure. Bloodwork shows dramatically elevated liver enzymes (ALT, AST), bilirubin, and coagulopathy from impaired hepatic synthesis of clotting factors. The 130+ documented deaths from the Midwestern 2020-2021 recalls were predominantly canine; the clinical course in fatal cases ran 24-72 hours from first signs to death. Dogs that survived with intensive supportive care (IV fluids, vitamin K1, hepatoprotective agents like SAMe and silymarin, transfusion for coagulopathy) often went on to develop chronic hepatic insufficiency. AKC’s December 2020 coverage documented the early case count and clinical pattern; the final FDA death count exceeded 130 by January 2021 and additional cases continued through 2021. This is the largest mass-fatality pet food recall in the U.S. since the 2007 Menu Foods melamine event and represents the highest documented per-event mortality from any single U.S. pet food manufacturer’s production failures.
What to do if you bought affected product
All recalled Midwestern Pet Foods products from the 2020-2021 events have long-expired Best By dates; no household pantry should still contain affected bags. If your dog or cat died of acute liver failure or developed unexplained chronic hepatic disease in late 2020 or 2021 after eating SportMix, Pro Pac, Nunn, Splash Fat Cat, or related Midwestern-manufactured product, the timing aligns with this event. Multiple class-action lawsuits processed reimbursement claims during 2022-2024. For current pet owners, the lasting lesson is the importance of brand recall history as a quality-systems signal: Midwestern Pet Foods’ pre-2020 recall history did not flag systemic quality-systems failures, but the 2020-2021 events and the FDA company-wide warning letter establish a documented pattern. Current Midwestern brands (Earthborn, ProPac, SportMix, Wholesomes) are produced under post-warning-letter remediated protocols.
How this affects KibbleIQ’s grade
SportMix and other Midwestern Pet Foods brands are scored in the KibbleIQ database under their consumer-facing labels. Our methodology v15 scores each brand on its current ingredient list per our published methodology; the rubric does not currently include explicit recall-history scoring. Future methodology v2 will introduce recall-history scoring that weights events like this one significantly — the 130+ documented deaths, the FDA company-wide warning letter, and the multi-brand scope across a single manufacturer’s portfolio reflect the kind of systemic failure that should weight more heavily than single-event supplier-driven issues. For now, owners considering any Midwestern-manufactured brand should review the brand’s post-2021 quality-systems documentation and the FDA warning letter response. Earthborn Holistic, SportMix, ProPac, and other Midwestern brands continue to be available, but the 2020-2021 events represent the most severe pet food production failure of the past 15+ years. For now, our recommendation: read both our current Midwestern Pet Foods review AND this recall page when evaluating the brand.