Dry food brands help?

I'm doing a cost comparison of kibble, canned, and raw. Obviously I can't cover all food LOL, but I am going from supermarket to super premium in dry and canned.

For supermarket DRY brands, I've got 9Lives, Friskies, Meow Mix, Cat Chow, Chicken Soup for the Pet Lover's Soul, Iams, and Purina One.

Is ProPlan a "supermarket" food? Am I missing anything glaring? I should see if Fancy Feast has dry, I guess.

Grain free is a separate section.

What dry should be in super premium? (Or are they all grain free?) I probably will need subsets within the grain free.

If anyone has suggestions for widely available brands that you see in the supermarket, or at your petstore, please share (both wet and dry!)

Thanks to everyone that cares to share their thoughts!

I guess I dont see Chicken Soup...as a supermarket brand. I thought it was a decent middle of the road food.

I just mean it's available in most supermarkets. Not speaking to quality, just distribution.

LDG said:

I'm doing a cost comparison of kibble, canned, and raw. Obviously I can't cover all food LOL, but I am going from supermarket to super premium in dry and canned.
For supermarket DRY brands, I've got 9Lives, Friskies, Meow Mix, Cat Chow, Chicken Soup for the Pet Lover's Soul, Iams, and Purina One.
Is ProPlan a "supermarket" food? Am I missing anything glaring? I should see if Fancy Feast has dry, I guess.
Grain free is a separate section.
What dry should be in super premium? (Or are they all grain free?) I probably will need subsets within the grain free.
If anyone has suggestions for widely available brands that you see in the supermarket, or at your petstore, please share (both wet and dry!)
Thanks to everyone that cares to share their thoughts!

Click to expand...

You can probably check online at Walmart.com or Target.com for all the "supermarket" brands.  If they carry it, you can consider it supermarket.  I personally consider ProPlan supermarket food as well, anything made by Purina would be IMO.

Oh, and Fancy Feast does have dry.  Blech.  

I've never seen Chicken Soup in a grocery store! I'm jealous. It's hard to find here. . .I know of only one place that sells it (a small specialty pet food store). I've never seen Pro Plan in a grocery store either.

Fancy Feast does make a dry food, and it's terrible. Other grocery store brands you didn't list are Alley Cat (ugh) and Whiskas. Probably should make a mention of the store brands, too.

"Super premium" is kind of a difficult category, I think. I consider Chicken Soup to be higher quality than Wellness, for example, but a lot of people would put Wellness under "super premium", and not Chicken Soup.

LDG said:

I'm doing a cost comparison of kibble, canned, and raw. Obviously I can't cover all food LOL, but I am going from supermarket to super premium in dry and canned.
For supermarket DRY brands, I've got 9Lives, Friskies, Meow Mix, Cat Chow, Chicken Soup for the Pet Lover's Soul, Iams, and Purina One.
Is ProPlan a "supermarket" food? Am I missing anything glaring? I should see if Fancy Feast has dry, I guess.
Grain free is a separate section.
What dry should be in super premium? (Or are they all grain free?) I probably will need subsets within the grain free.
If anyone has suggestions for widely available brands that you see in the supermarket, or at your petstore, please share (both wet and dry!)
Thanks to everyone that cares to share their thoughts!

Click to expand...

Pro Plan is a supermarket brand.  Fancy Feast is also available in dry.  I have not payed attention if FF dry is available at supermarkets or not but it is available at Petsmart.  What is considered a super premium vs. a premium is highly debatable.  I also discovered that in some pet stores food may be considered super premium because of the % they get off of the sale of the item.  Marketing would play a huge role in doing this kind of comparison on a large scale.  The thought doing it exhausts me and your doing it is great

I pretty much shop at Petsmart so here is how I would rate brands but keep in mind it is just my interpretation of ingredients etc.  And BTW, being grain free does not automatically make it a super premium   Okay, here goes and I may miss a few brands here:

Super Premium - wet and dry:

Nutro Natural Choice

Wellness

Innova

Blue Buffalo

Premium - wet and dry

Nutro Max

Pro Plan

Purina One

Science Diet

IAMS

Wish I could think of more.  This is how they are categorized in the store I shop at.  I know I missed some of the brands but maybe I will remember later.
 

Yeah, I'll be lumping Wellness with Blue Buffalo, I think. I'll have to see as it develops.

In all the supermarkets around here, there's Newman's Own (or whatever it is) and Chicken Soup. And we don't live in a "wealthy" area by any stretch.

I'm excluding store brands themselves - there are just too many of them (though may include PetSmart's - whatever it is. Avoderm, I think?) in the .... not sure what to call that channel. :lol3:

I started the grain free section. I don't have the cost per day yet (that's the labor intensive part - have to get the feeding guide for each). But on a per pound basis, I was SHOCKED - and I mean :jaw: to find that Wellness Core was one of the more expensive ones. More expensive than Before Grain, EVO, ZiwiPeak's dry, and Nature's Variety Instinct! Of course, if the recommended feeding amount is significantly less than the others, it will cost less to feed it. (Still talking about dry foods here. Haven't started on canned yet).

Geez - I really ought to put the time in on providing carbs for everything on a DMB basis.

Thanks for the input, it's definitely helpful.

Here's what I've got so far (for dry, though wet will be in the same categories):

Chain Store/Supermarket/Feed Store Distribution:

Friskies
4Health
Cat Chow
9 Lives
Chicken Soup (may have to move that to Pet Store/Specialty Store)
Purina One
Meow Mix
Whiskas
Iams
Purina ProPlan
Fancy Feast



Pet Store/Specialty Distribution

Authority
Avoderm
Blue Buffalo
Castor & Pollux Organix
Eagle Pack
Eukanuba
Evanger's
Felidae
Halo's Spot's Stew
Innova
Nature's Logic
Newman's Own Organics
Nutro Naturals
Orijen
Performatrin
PRO PAC
Royal Canin
Science Diet
Wellness



Grain Free:

Acana
California Natural
Earthborn Holistic
EVO
Felidae Pure Elements
Grandma Lucy's Artisan (though this may be an FD raw - have to see)
Hill's Science Diet Ideal Balance
Innova Prime
Merrick Before Grain
Natural Balance
Nature's Variety Instinct
Now!
Pinnacle Peak
Solid Gold
Taste of the Wild
Wellness Core
Wysong Epigen 90
ZiwiPeak Real Meat (This may also belong in the FD raw)



"Raw Kibble"

Honest Kitchen Prowl
Wysong something?
Haven't completed search


I haven't completed the canned food list yet, but I suspect it's basically the same.

If anyone sees anything significant missing, I'd appreciate the mention! Thank you again!

Go! and Orijen are grain-frees you don't have listed. Also, Natural Balance isn't normally grain-free. . .I think they do have grain-free formulas but they may have an added name (ETA: only the L.I.D. formulas are grain-free).

Grandma Lucy's Artisan is a grain-free freeze-dried food, but it's not all meat. I bought some recently. The cats won't touch it, which is probably good because it smells strongly of garlic (fortunately the dogs like it). There are a few chunks of freeze-dried raw chicken, but most of it is something that looks like (and has the consistency of) instant mashed potatoes :lol3:.

I'm pretty sure ZiwiPeak is a freeze-dried raw.

Willowy said:

I'm pretty sure ZiwiPeak is a freeze-dried raw.

Click to expand...

Well... Almost... ZiwiPeak is actually air-dried Raw.....

Carolina said:

Well... Almost... ZiwiPeak is actually air-dried Raw.....

Click to expand...

Oops! Yeah, I was told it's like beef jerky, and I guess you wouldn't get that by freeze-drying. Still, it's not kibble. . .hard to classify.

There's another cat formula of Honest Kitchen. . .Grace? I think, let me look--yep: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006USWSZQ/?tag=&tag=thecatsite

Willowy said:

Oops! Yeah, I was told it's like beef jerky, and I guess you wouldn't get that by freeze-drying. Still, it's not kibble. . .hard to classify.
There's another cat formula of Honest Kitchen. . .Grace? I think, let me look--yep: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006USWSZQ/?tag=&tag=thecatsite

Click to expand...

Yep - little pieces of jerky.... not every cat will like it actually..... You feed very little though, so that helps. Nice complement for a cat who needs some extra calories :nod:

OMG :doh3: :lol3: I never understood Honest Kitchen.... how these worked..... Are they cooked or raw? Do you Know? I am soooo dumb - I thought That was a Pack of rice or something 10x :doh3: :lol3:

Carolina said:

OMG :doh3: :lol3: I never understood Honest Kitchen.... how these worked..... Are they cooked or raw? Do you Know? I am soooo dumb - I thought That was a Pack of rice or something 10x :doh3: :lol3:

Click to expand...

I haven't spent time on it yet, but when I was looking up commercial raw foods, I found the Honest Kitchen. I'm pretty sure it's raw. I'll let you know when I get to it.

So... I probably shouldn't include the ZiwiPeak - it's not meant to be fed like a kibble? :dk:

I'll have to see if Grandma Lucy's is meant to be rehydrated. If so, it doesn't belong in kibble.

I didn't realize Orijen had a grain-free kibble, thanks! And Go! didn't turn up in my searches. I'll go look for it.

Yes, Grandma Lucy's is meant to be rehydrated, I should have said that. It's very fast, it doesn't need to sit at all. Just add water. . .like I said, instant mashed potatoes :tongue2:. I get the impression that The Honest Kitchen is similar, but I haven't tried it yet so I don't know for sure.

Maybe Ziwipeak is meant to be used as a "kibble" :dk:. Because I don't think it's meant to be rehydrated. I wanted to try some but they don't seem to have a chicken flavor. And I don't know what my cats would think of venison or lamb jerky. . .I know they like chicken jerky.

Go! Is made by Petcurean, same as Now!. I'm not sure what the difference is really. I just know that I recently made an order of grain-free foods for my ferret (after looking at every single one available to determine suitability) so I have all those brands floating around in my head :lol3:.

I saw that Go! and Now! are both made by Petcurean. They're both grain free, so I just kept the Now! I already had in the spreadsheet. The Go! lines seem to be targeted for "condition" that equate to indoor active, senior, and coat condition.

Oh, yeah, there is one grain-free cat food made by Timberwolf Organics, called Serengeti. I'm not sure whether to include it because they seem to be having supply issues and I don't know if that's a short-term thing or whether it might be discontinued. I wanted to order it but none of the stores that had it listed had any in stock. But this is it: http://timberwolforganics.com/feline-diet/serengeti-herbal-felid-diet.html

LDG said:

I haven't spent time on it yet, but when I was looking up commercial raw foods, I found the Honest Kitchen. I'm pretty sure it's raw. I'll let you know when I get to it.
So... I probably shouldn't include the ZiwiPeak - it's not meant to be fed like a kibble? :dk:
I'll have to see if Grandma Lucy's is meant to be rehydrated. If so, it doesn't belong in kibble.
I didn't realize Orijen had a grain-free kibble, thanks! And Go! didn't turn up in my searches. I'll go look for it.

Click to expand...

No, ziwipeak is meant to be fed like a kibble..... The question is if the kitties will like it. The difference is, it is made of raw meat, and very rich and nutricious, so, you feed much less.

Thanks for that!!

Hmmm...  I don't know if you want to add specialty brands that are actually the major pet chain's brand.  Like Authority is Petsmart's.  I *think* Petco's is Halo but might be wrong on that one.  I don't shop there very often.  Then there are the other brands that celebrities tout.  I think Rachel Ray has food out but not sure if it's cat food or not.  Ellen DeGeneres also has one out but not sure if it is for cats either.  And just for clarification, Nutro is not Nutro Naturals.  There is a Nutra Naturals out there that has nothing to do with Nutro.   Nutro has Nutro Max and Nutro Natural Choice as it's two lines of cat food. 

You are doing an excellent job on this LDG