Menu Foods Looses Over China Made Ingredients

The fallout from a tainted pet food scandal hit Menu Foods Income Fund again on Tuesday, when its biggest customer said it would stop buying some of its products in the fourth quarter. The unnamed customer, whose total purchases made up nearly 10.8% of Menu Food's sales volume in 2006, said it would stop buying 'loaf' products from the company beginning Oct. 1, Menu Foods said in a statement. Earlier this year, the same customer said it would stop purchases of other Menu Foods products. "Menu Foods is disappointed in the reaction of this customer to the pet food recall. The intentional tainting of product inputs from a third party supplier in China was a fraudulent act that victimized many pet food manufacturers, customers and consumers," Paul Henderson, Menu's president and chief executive, said in the statement. Menu Foods was one of almost a dozen North American pet food manufacturers that had used vegetable proteins contaminated in China with melamine or related compounds. In March, the company recalled millions of cans of tainted pet food manufactured at two U.S. plants after reports of some animal deaths. Menu Foods' units were down 50, or 16%, at $2.50 on the Toronto Stock Exchange at 2:30 p.m. ET.
(c) Reuters 2007 Tuesday, August 14, 2007