Royal Canin Delivers Fifteen Tons of Free Cat Food to Area Animal Shelters
Royal Canin, a pet food company with its U.S. headquarters in St. Charles, Mo., recently donated 15 tons of cat food to six St. Louis-area animal shelters and rescue groups. The food will be used by those shelters to offer a year's worth of free food with any cat adoption on Saturday.
St. Louis, MO (PRWEB) August 12, 2005 -- Royal Canin (www.royalcanin.us), a pet food
company with its U.S. headquarters in St. Charles Mo., today completed delivery
of more than 15 tons of free cat food to six St. Louis-area animal shelters and
rescue groups. This Saturday, the shelters will use the food as the main
incentive of a regional adoption drive. Each shelter will offer a year's worth
of free Royal Canin food with every adoption.
The free food is part of a
60-ton surplus Royal Canin plans to donate throughout the Midwest. The donation
and adoption event idea arose after Royal Canin recently changed the packaging
for its entire cat food line.
“All the food is new; it's just in the
outdated packaging,” explains Ann Hudson, director of marketing for Royal Canin.
“Still, it turned out to be a good problem to have. It gave us a reason to
donate a significant amount of food and to provide shelters and rescue groups
with a great incentive to encourage adoptions.”
Six shelters, including
St. Louis City's Animal Center, the Granite City Animal Protection Association
(APA), the Franklin County Humane Society, the St. Charles Humane Society, the
Open Door Animal Sanctuary and the Cat Network are all hoping the year's worth
of food will lead to a wave of adoptions on Saturday.
“We think it's a
great offer and may be enough to entice some people who have wanted to adopt a
cat, but just haven't taken that step,” says Jill Allen, shelter manager for the
St. Charles Humane Society. “We're especially hopeful that this will encourage
people to adopt some of the adults we have in our care, so many of which would
make great pets and deserve good homes. By offering a year's worth of food,
we're trying to make adoping a cat of any age as easy and rewarding as
possible.”
Allen is also excited about the other part of Royal Canin's
donation. In addition to providing food to be sent home with each adoption, the
company donated enough food to feed all the cats within the shelter's care for
approximately one year. The St. Charles Humane Society is home to approximately
41 adult cats and 28 kittens.
“We wanted to make sure that each shelter
had enough cat food, regardless of how many cats or kittens it adopted out on
Saturday, to meet its needs for about one year,” says Hudson. “In some cases,
some shelters had to scale back based on their ability to store the food, but
all of them should have enough food to last quite a while.”
Storage
wasn't a big issue for Allen, which requested 4,000 pounds of food. “We cleared
out space within our basement so that we could take enough food to last
throughout the year.”
To qualify for a year's worth of food, individuals
simply need to adopt a cat or kitten, following the normal adoption guidelines
and processes of each shelter. The shelters will then give each new adoptee
approximately 42 pounds of the right formula for their new pet. Each shelter has
adequate supplies of kitten, adult, mature and light food to provide new cat
owners, as well as some specialty formulas, such as sensitive stomach. Royal
Canin used industry guidelines to estimate a year's worth of food. Those
guidelines indicate that an average cat will eat approximately three and one
half pounds of food per month, or 42 pounds per year.
“Based on those
guidelines, our donation should feed approximately 700 St. Louis-area cats for
one year, not to mention help their owners save some money on cat food,” adds
Hudson.
Individuals interested in adopting a cat can call Royal Canin at
1-800-592-6687, visit its Web site at www.royalcanin.us or contact one of the six participating
shelters.
About Royal Canin
Royal Canin is a leading worldwide
supplier of nutritional pet foods. Ongoing research and innovations in health
nutrition have been at the heart of our company's mission since its
establishment in 1967. Since then, Royal Canin has grown to include research and
distribution centers in England, France, Australia, South America and the United
States. To learn more about Royal Canin products, receive detailed information
on pet nutrition, or read articles of interest regarding dogs and cats, call
1-800-592-6687 or visit their web site at www.royalcanin.us.
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Source : http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/8/prweb272062.htm