Jeremy Mooney spent nearly a month trying to figure out where small black bugs kept appearing in his house before he traced the source back to a bag of Purina ONE dog kibble he had been feeding his dog. His video documenting the discovery has been viewed more than 2 million times on TikTok. As detailed by BroBible, Mooney broke open a piece of the kibble on camera and found larvae crawling inside.
In the clip, Mooney said “it’s in almost every piece of dog food” as he pulled apart several more pieces and found the same thing. He said the bugs appeared to be spread throughout a large portion of the bag rather than being an isolated find.
This is not the first time a pet owner has run into this problem. Similar reports have surfaced for years, including a 2024 case involving a bag purchased from Target and a 2025 report describing Indian meal moth larvae in another bag of dog food.
This kind of complaint keeps resurfacing online
One of the earliest reports traces back to 2009, when a poster on a golden retriever forum said they had found eggs, larvae, and flying insects hatching in their Purina ONE kibble. The poster claimed the issue persisted even after switching stores and storing the food in airtight containers, and said Purina responded only with coupons rather than addressing the root cause.
The reports come amid a broader wave of consumer complaints that have gained traction online recently, including a lawsuit over french fries that a New York woman filed against McDonald’s this year. Product complaints like these tend to spread quickly once video evidence is attached.
Commenters online have largely pointed away from the factory as the likely source of contamination. One Reddit user said they dealt with bugs in pet food for about six months until they switched stores, which resolved the problem entirely. Another commenter on a golden retriever forum said “it’s a storage issue and once a warehouse gets an infestation,” suggesting that pantry moths can spread easily once they take hold in a facility.
A Purina representative previously addressed how the company handles these cases, saying affected customers should “stop feeding the product and place infested product inside a sealed bag.” The company typically asks for details about when and where a product was purchased and how it was stored to help trace the contamination back through the supply chain. Similar frustrations have shown up in other consumer disputes too, like a customer’s Chipotle complaint that also went viral this year over how a company handled a customer issue.
Pet owners concerned about product safety can file a report through the FDA’s Safety Reporting Portal or SmartHub Safety Intake Portal. The FDA uses these reports to monitor for wider issues and determine whether a follow-up investigation is warranted, and it generally asks for the product’s lot number, UPC code, and purchase location.
Owners who suspect their pet became sick after eating contaminated food are asked to include the pet’s age, breed, weight, and any pre-existing conditions, along with details on symptoms like lethargy, vomiting, or diarrhea and how quickly they appeared. The FDA does not cover the cost of private lab testing or reimburse veterinary bills tied to these complaints.
Published: Aug 4, 2026 07:45 pm