A reply from Temptations

About a week ago, I wrote about noticing that my cat's bag of Temptations treats contained an ingredient called "natural free range chicken flavor." And, I wondered, what is this "flavor" made of? I'd understand actual free range chicken in the product, but was this "flavor," as it was called, just some concoction made by a scientist in a lab?

Having much too much time on my hands, I ended up emailing Mars, Inc., the parent company, to get to the bottom of the mystery. In my email, I inquired:

I recently noticed, on the packaging, the printed claim of "natural free range chicken flavor" contained within the product. I am curious as to what constitutes this "flavor?" The ingredient list did not provide a breakdown or definition. Thank you, and I look forward to your reply.

Days passed with no response. Then, last night, I received the following email:

Thank you for contacting us. We appreciate your interest in our WHISKAS® TEMPTATIONS® Treats for Cats.

The Free Range Chicken flavor is made with chickens that are allowed to eat free range. Which means they eat grass, bugs, worms and natural things instead of only allowed to eat chicken feed.

Your confidence in our products and continued goodwill are very important to us.

I don't know where the "confidence" line came from, since I was writing to them with nothing but skepticism. But, grammatical error aside, the folks at Mars at least gave me an answer. A somewhat cryptic answer, since it still doesn't explain why this ingredient is called a "flavor" rather than just "chicken," but an answer, nonetheless. It also doesn't actually say what the ingredients are in this "flavor," but I guess it's all I can expect from a giant behemoth of a company.