Tender Vittles

Tender Vittles was a brand of cat food manufactured by Nestlé under the Purina name. The cat food was previously made by Ralston Purina Company, which was purchased by Nestlé. The name is a phonetic spelling of the phrase "Tender Victuals", which tended to be mispronounced by consumers.

It was one of the first to bridge the gap between wet, canned cat food, and dry, bagged cat food, being a bit moist and sealed in a vacuum pouch.^{[citation needed]}

Tender Vittles was the #1 brand of cat food in the United States with sales in excess of $100 million dollars per year.

Tender Vittles commercials were shown daily throughout the United States and normally had the submissive cat owner trying to feed their finicky cat, unsuccessfully until they gave them Tender Vittles. In addition, Tender Vittles memorabilia can be found selling on eBay.

As of March 2007, the Tender Vittles product line was discontinued in the United States. It was discontinued because the semi-moist food, with high sugar and salt content, caused health problems for cats.

References in Popular Culture

• In the Futurama episode 3ACV11 "Insane in the Mainframe", Bender suggests that Fry retire on Tender Vittles after Fry loses his retirement fund on scratch and sniff lottery tickets.

• In the Futurama episode "That Darn Katz," the leader of the hyper-intelligent cats says that when they first came to earth, during the time of the Egyptians, they became domesticated because the Egyptians provided them with "feasts most fancy, and victuals most tender," in reference to Fancy Feast cat food and Tender Vittles. "Victuals" is the generally accepted spelling of the word.

• In the Venture Bros episode "Operation P.R.O.M." Sgt. Hatred states that he got his previous tattoo removed, except for the area over his equatorial region, stating that it's "Tender Vittles down there".

• In Berkeley Breathed's comic strip Bloom County the character Bill the Cat was described as being addicted to getting high from snorting Tender Vittles.