Cat Food
Earthborn Holistic Primitive Feline Chicken & Vegetables Review
High-protein grain-free cat food with three fish proteins, probiotics, and a 2021 Salmonella recall on record.
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In an industry where every successful premium brand eventually gets acquired — Merrick by Nestlé, Blue Buffalo by General Mills, Nutro by Mars, Natural Balance by three different owners in a decade — Earthborn Holistic stands out for a simple reason: nobody has bought it. Midwestern Pet Foods was founded in 1926 as a small grain milling operation in Evansville, Indiana. Nearly a century and four generations of family leadership later, it remains privately owned and operated. The company launched Earthborn Holistic as its premium flagship line, alongside the more affordable Pro Pac and the economy-tier Sportmix. All production happens in four Midwestern-owned facilities across Indiana, Illinois, Oklahoma, and New York — no co-packers, no outsourced manufacturing, and no corporate parent dictating reformulations. In a market dominated by Mars, Nestlé, and private equity, that level of independence is increasingly rare and worth recognising.
Many pet food brands mention sustainability. Earthborn Holistic has built an entire ecosystem around it. The Earthborn ReBorn programme, launched in 2015 in partnership with TerraCycle, allows customers to drop off empty pet food bags at participating retailers for free recycling and upcycling. As of late 2025, the programme has recycled over 2 million bags, diverting more than 260,000 pounds of packaging waste from landfills. All Earthborn Holistic dog food packaging is now made with 25% recycled material using the ISCC mass balance approach. Separately, the UPCs for Trees programme partners with Trees for the Future: customers mail in UPC barcodes from empty bags, and each one funds the planting of a tree in deforested regions worldwide. The Venture sub-brand goes further with the PlantBag — a bag made partially from plant-based materials. No other pet food brand at this price point matches the breadth and maturity of Earthborn's environmental initiatives.
Earthborn Holistic went its entire existence without a recall until January 2021, when Midwestern Pet Foods issued a voluntary recall covering multiple brands — including Earthborn Holistic, Pro Pac, and Sportmix — after routine FDA testing detected potential salmonella contamination at the Monmouth, Illinois facility. The Sportmix recall was more severe, with the FDA linking 130 pet deaths and 220 illnesses to aflatoxin contamination in that specific brand. Earthborn Holistic products were not linked to any confirmed illnesses or deaths, but the shared manufacturing footprint meant the recall extended across Midwestern's entire portfolio. The company responded by enhancing its testing protocols and investing in facility upgrades. It is fair to say that the 2021 incident — while primarily a Sportmix problem — raised legitimate questions about quality control across Midwestern's multi-brand operation. Since then, no further recalls have occurred, and the Earthborn Holistic line continues to receive strong reviews from independent evaluators. For pet owners who want a family-owned, US-manufactured, sustainability-committed brand with genuinely clean ingredient lists and no corporate parent, Earthborn Holistic is one of the few remaining options that checks every box — with the 2021 recall as the one asterisk worth knowing about.
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High-protein grain-free cat food with three fish proteins, probiotics, and a 2021 Salmonella recall on record.
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