Hill's Pet Nutrition, Inc., marketed simply as "Hill's", is an American pet food company that produces

dog The dog (''Canis familiaris'' or ''Canis lupus familiaris'') is a domesticated descendant of the wolf. Also called the domestic dog, it is derived from the extinct Pleistocene wolf, and the modern wolf is the dog's nearest living relativ ...

and cat foods. The company is a subsidiary of

Colgate-Palmolive Colgate-Palmolive Company is an American multinational consumer products company headquartered on Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The company specializes in the production, distribution, and provision of household, health ca ...

History

Hill's Pet Nutrition was founded in the spring of 1907 by Burton Hill and started operation as Hill Rendering Works. Hill Rendering Works provided rendering services to

Shawnee County, Kansas Shawnee County (county code SN) is located in northeast Kansas, in the central United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 178,909, making it the third-most populous county in Kansas. Its most populous city, Topeka, is the stat ...

, and had a contract with

Topeka, Kansas Topeka ( ; Kansa: ; iow, Dópikˀe, script=Latn or ) is the capital city A capital city or capital is the municipality holding primary status in a country, state, province, department, or other subnational entity, usually as its seat ...

, to dispose of dead and lame animals. Hill Rendering Works produced tallow, hides, tankage, meat scraps and farm animal feed including hogs and chicken feed. By the 1930s, the name had changed to Hill Packing Company, which included a milling division, Hill Milling company. At this time the company produced farm animal feed, dog food and horse meat for human consumption, processing 500 head of horse per week. The meat was shipped to markets in

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

, Sweden,

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bo ...

and the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

. Much of the horse meat was sold to the east coast as a product called Chopped and Cured and shipped to Europe as barreled horse loins. Hill's Dog Food can label

In 1948, Mark L. Morris contacted Hill Packing Company to produce Canine k/d. Hill Packing Company became the license producer of Canine k/d. In 1968, the food line was made available through veterinarians and pet professionals as Hill's Science Diet. The line continued to expand and includes more than 60 Prescription Diet brand pet foods (prescription foods for cats and dogs with specific diseases, only available through a vet or pet pharmacy) and

Science Diet Science Diet is a brand of cat and dog foods marketed by Hill's Pet Nutrition, Inc. (a subsidiary of the Colgate-Palmolive Company). In the United Kingdom and Europe, Science Diet operates as Science Plan. History Science Diet was developed in t ...

brand pet foods (sold through veterinarians and pet specialty stores). In 1968, Hill Packing Company was sold to

Riviana Foods Ebro Foods, S.A. (; ), formerly Ebro Puleva, is a Spanish food processing company. Ebro Foods is the world's largest producer of rice and the second biggest producer of pasta (its Panzani brand is a market leader in France). The company's head off ...

, then in 1976 the

Colgate-Palmolive Company Colgate-Palmolive Company is an American multinational consumer products company headquartered on Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The company specializes in the production, distribution, and provision of household, health car ...

merged with Riviana Foods.

Product brands

Science Diet

was developed in the 1960s by Mark L. Morris Jr. (1934 – 2007). Morris was the son of veterinarian Dr. Mark Morris Sr., who pioneered the field of veterinary clinical nutrition when asked to create a specialized diet for the original seeing-eye dog, Buddy, a female German Shepherd with kidney disease. That success led Morris and his son to create additional condition-specific and life-stage pet food formulas under the Prescription Diet and Science Diet brand names.

Prescription Diet

Prescription Diet is a line of pet food formulated to help cats and dogs with health issues.

Recalls

One Prescription Diet line and five products of the Science Diet line were involved in the

2007 pet food recalls Beginning in March 2007, there was a widespread recall of many brands of cat and dog foods due to contamination with melamine and cyanuric acid. The recalls in North America, Europe, and South Africa came in response to reports of kidney failur ...

for their inclusion of melamine tainted wheat gluten received from China. On January 31, 2019, Hill's recalled 25 varieties of its canned dog food, because of elevated levels of

vitamin D Vitamin D is a group of fat-soluble secosteroids responsible for increasing intestinal absorption of calcium, magnesium, and phosphate, and many other biological effects. In humans, the most important compounds in this group are vitamin D3 ...

, due to a supplier error. Vitamin D overdose in animals can cause irreversible kidney damage and eventually death. On February 12, 2019, San Francisco law firm Schubert Jonckheer & Kolbe LLP filed a

class action A class action, also known as a class-action lawsuit, class suit, or representative action, is a type of lawsuit where one of the parties is a group of people who are represented collectively by a member or members of that group. The class action ...

lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California against Hill's on behalf of affected owners for distributing dog food which contained potentially toxic levels of vitamin D.

References

External links

* {{Authority control Cat food brands Dog food brands Colgate-Palmolive brands Companies based in Topeka, Kansas 1968 mergers and acquisitions