Safe Pet Treats Features Recall Tracking, Notifications, and More

If you’re a pet guardian, safety and well-being are top priorities. Safe Pet Treats, created by J&D Santa LLC, is an iPhone app that allows pet owners to research pet treats to make sure they’re safe for consumption.

We usually hear about pet food recalls on the news and other media outlets, but often times smaller recalls don’t get the attention they deserve. Safe Pet Treats aims to provide pet owners with the resources they need to make sure they are buying safe products.

When you first open Safe Pet Treats, you’re greeted with a privacy policy that you have to accept in order to use the app. Once you’ve accepted, you can choose to either scan a product barcode or search for a product by name or UPC number.

One of the things I noticed about the barcode scanner is that it is fairly hit or miss in terms of accuracy. Unlike most barcode scanners, there isn’t a reference point on the screen so it’s a little tough to judge the optimal distance for capturing a barcode.

I conducted a few tests with different cat food and treat items around my house and found that most of them return zero results when scanned via barcode. Those that did return results only said that the product was not listed on any recalls, but I couldn’t find a way to confirm that the product the app recognized was the same product I scanned.

When searching for an item by brand name, I experienced the same results. The app would tell me that the product was not on the recall list, but Safe Pet Treats also displays a list of similar products you can purchase from Amazon. I’m pretty sure that these are Amazon Affiliate links, but I didn’t see anything mentioned in the privacy policy.

Safe Pet Treats includes a few extra features, such as the ability to report products that have been recalled but are still available on shelves, as well as instant alerts that notify you when a new item has been added to the recall list.

Unfortunately I didn’t have the opportunity to see the notification feature in action, but I’d like to see a setting added that allows users to select what kind of notifications they receive based on the pet that they have.

When it comes to value, you certainly can’t beat the price of free. Safe Pet Treats doesn’t include in-app purchases, either, nor is it supported by ads. However, I can’t say for sure whether the app provides accurate information or not.

As I mentioned before, I think it needs to be much more detailed when providing users with results so they know that the product the app searched for is the same one they’re checking out.

Safe Pet Treats requires iOS 7.0 or later and is compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

A small administrative fee was paid by the developer for publication of this review, which did not influence the reviewer’s opinion