The Food and Drug Administration has warned consumers to discard two lots of Darwin's Natural Selections Chicken Recipe for Cats after lab tests confirmed Salmonella contamination. The agency says Arrow Reliance Inc., which does business as Darwin's Natural Pet Products, has declined the FDA's recommendation to recall the affected food, leaving the alert as a consumer advisory rather than a formal product pull.
What triggered the warning
A consumer complaint to the FDA described two cats that became ill after eating the product, with one cat hospitalized. Both animals recovered once the Darwin's food was removed from their diet. Subsequent testing identified Salmonella in two specific lots: Lot 12731, manufactured July 8, 2026, and Lot 12493, manufactured April 2, 2026. Because the frozen packaging carries no expiration date, the FDA is urging pet owners to check freezers for these lot numbers before feeding the product to any animal, even if the food was purchased some time ago.
How to handle potentially contaminated food
The FDA recommends sealing any implicated food in a secure container before throwing it away, and thoroughly cleaning and sanitizing bowls, utensils, storage containers or countertops that may have come into contact with it. Salmonella can spread from pet food to household surfaces and, in some cases, to people handling the product, so standard sanitation practices around raw pet food remain important even when pets show no symptoms.
A pattern of repeated contamination findings
This is not an isolated incident for the Tukwila, Washington-based company. The FDA has logged six separate contamination findings in Darwin's products since 2023, following earlier pathogen detections before that period, including Salmonella identified at the company's manufacturing facility in 2024. From 2016 through January 2026, the agency received 49 consumer complaints tied to Darwin's raw pet food, involving 34 sick dogs, five of which died, and 35 sick cats, four of which died.
Federal legal action already underway
In August, the Department of Justice filed a complaint seeking to permanently bar Gary T. Tashjian and Arrow Reliance Inc. from manufacturing or selling raw pet food. The filing cites cases in which people in contact with the company's products became ill, including a 4-year-old boy who developed kidney failure; third-party testing of an unopened package reportedly matched Salmonella and STEC bacteria found in the child. The government alleges the company violated the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act by failing to follow required preventive controls, allowing uncooked pet food to become adulterated. That case remains pending, and the current Salmonella warning underscores the company's continued resistance to a voluntary recall even as federal scrutiny intensifies.