Musti Group, which runs the Musti ja Mirri chain of pet supply stores, saw its share price fall by as much as 17 percent on Monday as the fallout from the product recall continued.
The Musti Group has been heavily criticised for its handling of a recall of a brand of dog food suspected of causing serious illness to a large number animals, ranging from nausea to temporary paralysis.
The group is one of the largest pet supply companies in the Nordic region, and the product at the centre of the recall has sold at its ‘Musti ja Mirri’ and ‘Peten Koiratarvike’ outlets.
The company’s statement on Monday noted that it had received hundreds of complaints from pet owners about the matter.
In total, about 33,000 kg of a dog food under the brand name SMAAK Herkkä kala viljaton was recalled or withdrawn from store shelves.
The product is manufactured in Lieto, in Southwest Finland, and has also been exported to Sweden and Norway. The company has also issued recall notices in those countries, although so far the symptoms allegedly linked to the food have only been reported in Finland.
People who have purchased the product in Finland have been advised to return it to retailers.
Consumer union calls on firm to cover vet costs
Although the company has recalled the product, the Consumers’ Union of Finland has criticised the Musti Group about its response to the incident, saying it does not go far enough.
“We are calling on Musti ja Mirri to quickly come forward and say it will deal with the matter of compensating veterinary costs,” the union’s spokesperson Juha Beurling-Pomoell said, adding that owners should be reimbursed for the costs of treating their pets.
“The more time passes, the more irresponsibly Musti ja Mirri acts. Pet owners need that information as soon as possible. There is no time to delay now, they have to make decisions quickly,” he said.
Musti Group’s share price collapses
The product recall and Musti Group’s response to the growing furore was reflected in the collapse in the firm’s stock share price when the Helsinki Stock Exchange opened on Monday morning.
Negative headlines generated by the recall over the weekend appears to have prompted the group’s share price to fall by more than eigh percent when the market opened, plummeting further by as much as 17 percent later that morning.
By early afternoon the share price had stabilised at around 17 euros, reflecting a decline of about 13 percent.