Blue Buffalo Cat Food Recall History: The Two Cat Recalls, Separated From the Dog Ones

Search for Blue Buffalo cat food recalls and you will find a long, confusing list — because most of it is not about cat food at all. Blue Buffalo has had several recalls since 2007, but the majority hit its dog food and dog treats. The cat-food side of the story is much shorter, and much more specific: one industry-wide catastrophe in 2007, one small treats recall in 2015, and nothing since for cat food itself. This is that cat-side history, kept separate from the dog-side recalls on purpose, because mixing them up is how owners end up throwing away food that was never recalled — or missing the one product that was.

The 2007 Melamine Recall: The Cat Foods Involved

In the spring of 2007, the pet food industry was hit by the largest recall in its history. Melamine, a chemical used in plastics, had entered the supply chain through rice protein concentrate imported from China, and it was turning up in wet pet foods made by a contract manufacturer, American Nutrition Inc. The FDA confirmed melamine in rice protein concentrate in food made for Blue Buffalo, and the recall that followed was sweeping.

For cats specifically, the recalled Blue Buffalo products were the BLUE Spa Select canned cat food line and the BLUE Spa Select Kitten dry food. All cans of the Spa Select cat food were included, along with the kitten dry food, plus — on the dog side — all cans of BLUE dog food and all BLUE dog treats. Blue Buffalo later severed its relationship with American Nutrition.

Melamine itself is not highly toxic in small amounts, but combined with a related compound, cyanuric acid, it forms crystals in the kidneys that can cause kidney failure. Across the whole 2007 event, more than 100 brands were recalled and thousands of pets became ill or died, though it was never established how many of those cases involved Blue Buffalo products specifically. The scale is the point: this was not a Blue Buffalo failure alone. It was a supply-chain failure that caught almost every brand using the same contract manufacturer and the same imported ingredient, and it changed how the whole industry sourced ingredients afterward. Blue Buffalo moved its manufacturing to the United States in the aftermath.

If you still have a can of Spa Select cat food from 2007 in a cupboard somewhere, it belongs in the bin, not the bowl — but realistically, no 2007 stock is still in circulation. The value of the 2007 recall today is not in checking a can. It is in understanding that the biggest pet food disaster in modern history was an ingredient-sourcing failure, not a single brand’s recipe, and that the brands that survived it did so by changing suppliers.

The 2015 Kitty Yums Recall: The Only Cat-Only Recall Since

Between 2007 and today, Blue Buffalo’s cat food has had exactly one dedicated recall, and it was small. In November 2015, the company voluntarily recalled a limited number of 2-ounce pouches of Blue Kitty Yums Tasty Chicken Recipe cat treats after they were found to contain low levels of propylene glycol.

Propylene glycol is a compound used in some foods and industrial products. It is permitted at low levels in dog food, but it is not permitted in cat food under FDA guidelines, because cats are more sensitive to it: it can damage red blood cells and, at higher exposures, cause anemia and related problems. The amounts found in the Kitty Yums pouches were described as low, and the recall was precautionary and limited — specific pouches with best-by dates of April 24, 2016, or July 24, 2016.

That is the whole cat-treats recall: one product, one flavor, two best-by dates, one month in 2015. If you are buying Kitty Yums or any Blue Buffalo cat treats today, the 2015 recall does not apply to them. Treats made since then, with different dates and different lots, are not part of it. But the recall is a useful reminder of a quirk that still trips owners up: an ingredient that is legal in dog treats can be illegal in cat treats, and a product that is fine for the dog in the house may not be fine for the cat. Never assume a treat is safe for both species just because it comes from the same brand.

What About the Dog Recalls? Keep Them Separate

This is where most Blue Buffalo recall lists go wrong for cat owners. The brand’s better-known recalls after 2007 were dog products: an October 2010 recall of several dry dog foods over potentially excessive vitamin D, linked to a supplier sequencing error; a November 2015 recall of a single lot of Cub Size Wilderness Wild Chews Bones over potential Salmonella, in the same month as the Kitty Yums recall; and later dog-treats events including a 2019 thyroid-hormone recall of Trail Treats and a 2020 mold recall of BLUE Bits. The Blue Buffalo dog treats recall history covers those events in detail, and none of them was a cat food recall.

Keeping the species straight matters for two practical reasons. First, a cat owner who reads a dog-recall list and panics may switch their cat’s food for no reason, and abrupt food switches cause stomach upset on their own. Second, a cat owner who assumes “Blue Buffalo was recalled” in general may stop reading before reaching the one line that actually names a cat product — the Kitty Yums pouches — and miss the only cat recall that ever applied to their cupboard. Species, product, lot, and date: all four, every time.

The 2019 DCM Listing Was Not a Recall

One more confusion to clear up, because it appears on nearly every Blue Buffalo page. In June 2019, the FDA named Blue Buffalo among 16 pet food brands most frequently named in reports of dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM), a heart condition, in dogs eating grain-free diets. Some cats were also reported. The FDA was careful to say the issue was complex, that no causal link had been proven, and that the investigation was ongoing.

A listing in an investigation is not a recall. No Blue Buffalo cat food was pulled from shelves over DCM, no lot was named, and no owner was told to stop feeding a specific product. Treating the DCM investigation as a recall overstates what happened and understates what a real recall looks like: a named product, a named hazard, and an instruction to stop feeding it. The DCM story deserves honest discussion about grain-free diets and heart health, and owners with concerns should talk to their veterinarian about their own cat’s diet. It does not belong on a recall list.

What Cat Owners Should Take From This

Three things, and they are all practical. First, Blue Buffalo’s cat food recall history is genuinely short: the 2007 melamine event and the 2015 Kitty Yums treats recall, with no cat-food recall since 2015 in the records reviewed for this article. That is a better cat-side record than the brand’s overall reputation suggests, because the overall reputation is dragged down by dog recalls that never touched a cat product.

Second, the two cat recalls teach different lessons. The 2007 lesson is about supply chains: a single contaminated ingredient from a single supplier can reach dozens of brands at once, which is why ingredient sourcing and manufacturer transparency matter more than any one brand’s marketing. The 2015 lesson is about species differences: cats are not small dogs, and an ingredient safe for one can be unsafe for the other. Check that a treat is made for cats, not just sold by a brand you trust for dogs.

Third, the checking habit is the same as for every recall in this series. Before you worry about a brand’s history, check the product in your home: the exact product name, the lot or best-by date, and the species it was made for. A recall notice that names Spa Select canned cat food from 2007 does not touch a bag of Tastefuls bought this year, and a notice that names Kitty Yums pouches with 2016 best-by dates does not touch anything on a shelf today. History informs the check; it does not replace it.

The Bottom Line

Blue Buffalo cat food recall history, kept honestly to cats, is two events: the 2007 melamine recall of Spa Select canned cat food and Spa Select Kitten dry food, and the November 2015 recall of Blue Kitty Yums Tasty Chicken Recipe treats over propylene glycol, best-by April 24 or July 24, 2016. The dog recalls, the DCM investigation, and the lawsuits that fill out the brand’s wider history are separate stories, and conflating them with cat food only confuses the owners who need clear answers. If you feed Blue Buffalo to a cat, the question is not “was Blue Buffalo ever recalled” — it almost certainly was, for dogs. The question is whether your cat’s exact product was ever recalled, and on that question, the answer since 2015 has been no.

Sources: FDA recall reports, April 2007 and November 2015; company announcements, November 2015; FDA DCM investigation update, June 2019 (text credits only, no links).