Are you having trouble finding Royal Canin vet cat food?

[Joanne]

My internal medicine vet started my kitty on Royal Canin Veterinary Diet Selected Protein Adult PR food back in February because of some GI issues. It worked and he loves it.

I noticed that it was out of stock a few times. Now it has been out of stock again and will not be available for my autoship. Chewy keeps saying soon. Royal Canin says in a couple of weeks and said that a couple of weeks ago.

Anyone else finding their food continuously out of stock now? Royal Canin is not being honest with customers. They told Chewy: “we are focusing on select items and other items will be temporaily unavailable for extended periods of time (i.e. certain vet diets).”

[cocopuff]

I was at Petsmart yesterday to buy cat food and even the regular Royal Canin cat food aisle looked like a wasteland of empty shelving. I asked the cashier who was ringing me up why it was so depleted and he thought it was because they were bringing out new flavors soon. I didn’t buy it as a reason but what else can he say?

[SaddleUp158]

Similar situation with the prescription dog food as well. Luckily my vet had a bag I was able to purchase. Normally I order the new bag a week or so out from running out of feed. Won’t do that anymore!

[Simkie]

I’ve seen this on and off for multiple other brands, and have been told there’s just really limited manufacturing availability–things become unavailable because there just isn’t enough production capacity. I wonder if that’s at play here, too? Especially considering it’s limited protein, I’d assume cross contamination is a big deal and further limits where it can be manufactured?

[Joanne]

It’s not just the limited protein food that is out of stock. There are other RC veterinary diet foods that are, too, plus some off-the-shelf foods.

It appears that they are having some major problems right now.

[Simkie]

Yeah, I understand. It’s been difficult to source many brands on and off the past year or two. I’ve been told it’s insufficient production capacity for pet food. The limited protein just limits even further where and when that particular food can be manufactured.

[TC3200]

There has been a shortage of Friskies, Fancy Feast,cans other Purina brands in at least PA, NY, OH, and IL for a couple of months. Pet store manager told me it’s a staffing issue due to production workers quarantined for probable exposure to covid. But as we saw during that melamine contaminated food debacle back in 2007 or so, many ingredients used in pet foods are imported from China. Maybe there are disruptions in the supply of imports.

[TC3200]

I was in Walmart a couple of weeks ago and there was no pate’ Friskies except the weird flavors “with” this or that. No Walmart Special Kitty cans. Lots of empty shelves. Walmart didn’t have anything to pack into the wrong homes, lol.

[afjordlife]

We get this for our cats from Amazon on Subscribe and Save. So far they’ve been sending it out every other month like clockwork. I don’t know where they source it from, and I do sort of consider them the evil empire, but they have an uncanny ability to get things when no one else can.

[shiloh]

Can barely find Friskies anywhere in my area (San Jose south to Monterey Co). All the shelves are nearly bare except for fishy flavors and my cats don’t eat fish. Really annoying - was going to try Chewy next.

Was told by a couple of places that Friskies was trying to raise the prices. “Because of the pandemic.” I call BS.

[Joanne]

Although Chewy was out of my kitty’s Royal Canin vet diet, in the last couple of weeks I saw it on Amazon. Seller: Royal Canin. Price: $149 per case (it cost me $81.42 autoship from Chewy). I watched for a while as the stock went down and finally out of stock, at $149. Supply and demand.

[2DogsFarm]

I have had the same problem with Iams.
Specifically the urinary formulas for both RC & Iams.
Stores - PetSmart, Petco & Walmart - have other specialized diet formulas stocked, but not the one I need.
Kibbled versions are readily available.
Purina ProPlan is easily found, but my cats won’t eat it.
Fancy Feast is everywhere, in a myriad of flavors & textures.

PetSmart employee directed me to another PetSmart store saying they require a vet onsite for the RX foods.
Which doesn’t make sense as dry versions are stocked.

[masConfetti]

So from the veterinary side we have asked the manufacturers and have gotten some info from several of them. The problems include

1. Limited factories and workers is an issue.
2. There is apparently a can shortage, as in trouble getting the material to make the actual cans.
3. Unexpected increase in demand for food (not positive if they meant prescription diets or in general). The companies just haven’t been able to keep up with demand.

According to one company this has resulted in them prioritizing the most popular foods getting made over less popular flavors or types.

My place of work is dealing with headaches over this because so many clients can’t find the foods they need and we literally can’t help because we can not get it either.

[shiloh]

@masConfetti

There is apparently a can shortage, as in trouble getting the material to make the actual cans.

That’s interesting. The recycling companies in my area decided they will no longer accept the cat food cans. I tried to take them seven bags of cans and they were refused.

[vxf111]

On an off during the pandemic some catfood I need (including at times RC dry food) has been out of stock everywhere. Right now I cannot find Sheba Perfect Portions salmon cuts (has to be cuts, they will not eat pate) except in variety packs (and they do not eat any other flavors). They have agreed to temporarily eat the similar product from Fancy Feast but UNDER DURESS. This is driving me NUTS.

[rubygirl1968]

It’s crazy. For weeks the grocery store shelves were empty of fancy feast and friskiest so I went to PetSmart and stocked up on other kinds.

Found one they liked and now PetSmart doesn’t have it and they won’t touch the FF and friskies that is back in stock at the grocery store.

The one Royal Canin dry food they will eat has been out of stock for weeks at petsmart. Not Rx.

Yes all are ridiculously picky and spoiled but old and need to eat. Lol

[trubandloki]

I have not been able to find the food my barn cat likes either (not Royal Canin).

I would guess cat food is like so many things - The Covid restrictions required plants to have less people on site, add sick people not coming to work and their workforce was much smaller than it typically would be. This lead to less production or limiting what they were making.
When I talked to the Coke (soda) distributor about the flavor Mr. Trub likes he told me with the limited number of employees they were allowed they simply stopped making everything but the most popular flavors.

[stargzng386]

I found this out a week ago and literally had a meltdown. I have a dog with a history of pancreatitis who is also allergic to chicken (and we stay away from turkey since it’s so close) she was SO sick for years of her life until we found Royal Canin gastrointestinal pork wet food and she’s been eating it for 5 years now. I had been receiving my chewy orders like clockwork with a minor blip when Covid first hit and everyone was stocking up. I kept an extra case on hand but everything went back to normal. I got the same email that it was out of stock so I call my vet since they’re my backup.

They initially laughed at me said it’s been an issue for months so the office is now carrying Hills lets switch to that…except that’s made with chicken. So once the vet and office staff realized that there is literally NO commercially made food that my dog could eat safely they apologized. The backup plan was to go to home cooked food but they did a bunch of digging online and found a vet only pharmacy that had it in stock and I was able to order 6 months worth and it’s on the fedex truck being delivered today. I posted a desperate plea on fb and couldn’t find any online except for crazy jacked up prices on ebay which is just wrong.

My other dog was on the dry version which has chicken but is still low fat because if my special pup got a piece of her normal dog food kibble it made her sick because of the fat. I’ve switched that dog to Hills i/d low fat just so that I only have one form of food to panic over. I’m going to continue to try and order it monthly and just keep a running stash of 5-6 months worth so that hopefully during that time if it’s not in stock it’ll become available again.

[Joanne]

I just called Chewy because my cat food was supposed to be available for purchase today. Several Chewy reps gave me the date and talking to them via social media gave me a date. March 26. The rep today now tells me they are not supposed to give exact dates when stuff is back in stock. She couldn’t even tell me if it was in stock today and sold out.

I’m just venting.

[vxf111]

It’s awful. Feel free to vent.

I did not expect this more than a year into the pandemic. I expected it early on and stocked up. But then I used my stockpile because I just did not expect there to be shortages AGAIN.