IAMS Cat Food Commercial 2003

Iams is a popular brand name for dog food and cat food manufactured by Spectrum Brands in Europe and Mars, Incorporated worldwide. 

During the 1940s, because pet food was not available in stores, animals were predominantly fed homemade food, usually table scraps. Paul Iams, an animal nutritionist who graduated from Ohio State University in 1937, founded The Iams Company in 1946 in a small feed mill near Dayton. In 1950, he developed the world’s first animal-based protein, dry dog food, and called it Iams 999. In 1969, Paul Iams formulated a new dog food and named it Eukanuba. 

In 1973 during the Arab oil embargo, the costs for meat and bone meal tripled, but sale prices in the US were frozen by a nationwide wage and price control issued by then-President Richard Nixon. Iams did not change the product formula during the price freeze mandate and the company nearly went broke. Clay Mathile, who joined Iams in 1970, purchased half of the company in 1975. By 1982, he became the sole owner and president.  Mathile sold it to P&G in September 1999.

In its largest divestiture in five years, Procter & Gamble announced in April 2014 that it would sell its Iams, Eukanuba and Natura pet food brands in all markets except Europe to Mars.