Lookee there, we finally agree on something.
Pablo had mentioned to me some of these changes that were coming up, and why he was going in this direction, but as I no longer have anything to do with the company, or their products, I really don't feel comfortable discussing specifics. That, and many things that we discuss aren't meant for public forums.
Labels show min and/or max, industry standards are generally typical analysis, and guaranteed analysis. In other words, with a pet food label one can adjust numbers up and down slightly as there is some wiggle room, depending on what the true min/max values are. Where as a typical analysis is an actual average across a certain number of batches. Many/most countries, and even state regulatory bodies can and often do check these numbers, so one can't just make things up as they go along. On pet food labels, a point or two in any direction is really no big deal.
What I do know, and can talk about, is a couple of years back Pablo began experimenting more with aquatic based plant matter, seaweed, kelp, and various algae (reflected in his new algae based food) and began using less wheat, and a higher inclusion rate of seaweed/algae ingredients. So if anything, today's food has less wheat and more aquatic based plant matter, which serve as both binding agents, and nutrient sources.
Most probably wouldn't remember this, but many years ago (15+?) NLS contained soybean meal. Pablo realized that he could lose the anti-nutritional matter often found in soybean meal, by paying far more and using a cleaner source of soybean, soybean isolate. No other manufacturer at that time spent that kind of money on soybean isolate or concentrate. I still wasn't thrilled with that, and told him so. I prefer as little terrestrial based plant matter in a fish food as possible. A few years back he called me to tell me that he was dropping soybean altogether, and called me in advance of the change in formulas (and labels) as he knew this had always been a bit of an issue with me. I was thrilled!
That's a man who is always looking ahead, and accepting changes in science, and even at the age of I think 77 now, he is still willing to change things up and make improvements in his food.
Also years back he had squid meal in all of his formulas, and removed it due to some red tape with various EU countries I believe. I wasn't thrilled about that either, so I am quite pleased to see the reintroduction of another similar raw ingredient. (mollusks)
Who knows, maybe some of you will actually see these changes as a big plus after using the new formulas for awhile? If not, then I guess you can change things up. Either way it's all good by me.
