canyoncreek's comment above made me bristle a little bit...but that doesn't matter.
I won't apologize for any company's behavior, except mine. And, I won't make any excuses for Purina Mills.
The threads sprkplg offered above are true. The first one (five years ago, by the way), Purina switched production from one of their mills to another of their mills. They figured out there was a production problem, and then they fixed it. It had nothing to do with ingredients. It was painful for all involved, and then they took care of it. It didn't take long for them to solve it.
The second thread also shared a problem. That's when the company sold the mill where AquaMax had been made since 2012, and the production team decided (without telling anyone else through the company) that they would only produce their core products at the remaining extrusion mill. That eliminated fish food from production. By that point, inventory was gone, and Purina reps (once they figured out what was going on), scrambled and found a private mill that would contract to make the feed. So, supply was solved, but even though the recipe was the same, the manufacturing process wasn't. That cost them some customers. That was also about the time Optimal came onto the scene and quite a few folks on this forum switched. Purina solved this production issue by changing plants again. There's been no other issues until this one (that I'm aware of). In this case, there's now a fact-finding mission to figure out what's going on, to see if there's a problem or not. If there is, I expect Purina to figure it out and fix it. If not, I expect to hear about that, too.
When I agreed to endorse their AquaMax products several years ago, I'd grown some outstanding fish with those products. Countless numbers of two pound bluegills, some three pound + bluegills, thousands of feed-trained largemouth bass and hybrid stripers.
It does get a little frustrating to have to deal with problems and inconsistency. At the same time, they've always addressed any issues I've confronted them with. (The two that sprkplg shared above are the two biggest ones, and I've not been real nice about it when I talk to them...I expect quality and consistency).
I expect them to find out the facts about John Alexander's issue as stated above, and I expect to find out the truth and share it on this thread.
I also expect that fish food to do what it is supposed to do.
I won't excuse mistakes. I will understand that we are dealing with a company full of people who do jobs. If the whole chain works, then we, as consumers, get what we expect. If not, we have a choice.
Many people on this forum haven chosen to use different brands of fish food. That's fine with me. I happen to still believe in Purina and have a degree of loyalty, because I've been working with them for 22 years to help develop the best fish foods they can build. If they stop making mistakes, we'll all be thrilled. That means I won't have to sit down and spend this time answering for them. If they don't stop making mistakes, but address each one and offer a legitimate response, I'll maintain my loyalty. If they make mistakes and try to excuse them or ignore them, there will be a different story.
So, I expect to hear from upper management at the company about this issue and we'll decide from there. I don't expect them to offer their thoughts on this forum, but I do expect them to tell me (and John Alexander) and we'll share it on this thread.
My parting shot is this...when we all stop making mistakes, I'll be much less tolerant of others mistakes.
