We’ve had to start doing this because one of our cats just plain refuses to eat any commercial pet food produced over the last year and a half. He was formerly overweight and you couldn’t stop him from eating but now he’s actually underweight as we’ve tried to adapt and try different things.

Having formerly worked in a retail meat department, I know the expired product gets sent to be turned into pet food, but I suspect with supply issues during covid (and greed masked as inflation) manufacturers across the board have substituted whatever it was they were used before for something more inferior now. There aren’t any/many regulations on pet food nor legal protections for pets, so it can be the wild west out there.