Cheapest high quality canned food?

I feed my girl fancy feast classics and sheba since I am on a budget but I want to squeeze some even better quality canned in when I can. Is there any brands that are of even better quality but not budget breaking?

Evo 95%, if you buy the 13-oz cans, is very reasonably priced. Dave's Natural is about the same, but some formulas have more veggies than others so read the labels (quick answer: Turkey and Giblets is low in veggies). The problem with buying the largest cans is that your kitty may not like reheated food :/. Of course those brands come in smaller cans too but it will cost more per ounce.

Other decent brands that only come in smaller cans are By Nature, Authority, and Trader Joe's.

Does she prefer pate style wet foods (versus chunk of meat)?

If so, "Nutro Natural Choice Soft Loaf" varieties are pretty decent. I think they are a little better in that they don't use by-products, and probably cost just a little more per can than Fancy Feast. Try not to feed the fish flavors too frequently.

ETA: It comes in the small 3 oz. cans.

A good inexpensive wet canned cat food, near the cost of Fancy Feast, is Sheba wet canned cat food. Sheba can be bought at Petsmart, Petco, Wal-Mart and Target. Comes in slices, cuts and pate textures.

http://www.sheba.com/Products

I live in a very small town which is just north northwest of the big city of Houston, Texas. There is another bigger town 12 miles away from the town where I live called Tomball and it's has a Petsmart, Wal-Mart and a Target store. About 4 miles further south of Tomball is a Petco store.

Most of my cat food buying is at Petsmart in Tomball. My male cat really likes Nutro Natural Choice, his main food choice and Sheba is his secondary choice. My cat will only eat sliced, minced and cuts wet canned cat food. He totally rejects any kind of pate. Unlike Nutro, Sheba does have both meat and meat by-products in it and this is why I feed my cat mostly Nutro. You can check out the ingredients in Sheba in the link above.

Right now at Petsmart, you can buy a single 3 ounce can of Sheba for $0.59 for a "taste test" and this is the non sale price. This is how I tried Sheba out on my cat. Many times Petsmart will put Sheba on sale for $0.50 or $0.52 for a 3 ounce can. For a person with a single cat and on a budget, Sheba is a good choice.

Since I was feeding my cat Nutro. I wanted a second brand just in case my cat decided he longer wanted any Nutro food. I did this because it took me almost 4 years (started when he was 12) to find a wet canned cat food he liked because he'd been a kibble addict his entire life (he's 16 now) and he would always reject wet canned cat food no matter what texture it was. This past June he surprised me and starting eating Nutro wet canned cat food (sliced, minced) and then Sheba wet canned cat food (slices, cuts). In both brands, I always bought a single can for a "taste test".

BTW, my cat is not a big cat. He weighs 11 pounds and normally eats 4 1/2 ounces of canned cat food daily. Occasionally, when he's really active during the day, he'll bump up his eating to 5 1/2 ounces.

GoHolistic said:

 
Does she prefer pate style wet foods (versus chunk of meat)?

If so, "Nutro Natural Choice Soft Loaf" varieties are pretty decent. I think they are a little better in that they don't use by-products, and probably cost just a little more per can than Fancy Feast. Try not to feed the fish flavors too frequently.

ETA: It comes in the small 3 oz. cans.

Click to expand...

She's not a picky eater at all. But I just glanced over the ingredients of the duck loaf and turkey loaf and noticed they didnt have sodium bisulfite complex

Nutro Naturals (certain varieties) are pretty darn good in my opinion. Some of them have no carrageenan too I think!

Petsmart Authority looks like a quite decent canned food for a  low price.   no mystery meat or poultry byproducts,  only a small amount of "brewers rice" ( rice scraps) that is listed after several animal protein ingredients.   I think it often works out to costing less than FF .   I have seen it at about 80 cents for a 6 ounce can.

The Wellness in the 12 ounce cans  work out to being a pretty good deal. 

You should search for a TRACTOR SUPPLY store near you.  There are plenty of them in the Houston area.  They have their OWN brand of wet cat food called 4health   that has no wheat, corn or soy, and no by products,  the small cans (5.5 oz, not little like Sheba) are 50 cents, same price as your average Friskies, much better ingredients.  It's fairly new and I have just started using it.  There are several formulas, all basically the same nutritionally.  There's Adult Chicken Formula, Turkey & Salmon Dinner, Chicken & Beef, and then they have one in a large can called Chicken & Brown Rice but mine didn't like that as well as the small cans.  The small cans appear to be aluminum, gold outside, white inside, not steel like 9Lives cans and the large cans of Friskies.  I think it makes a difference to taste; mine always prefer food in smaller aluminum type lined cans instead of the steel cans, although most rescues will eat anything and everything that is wet food. 

The 4health Adult Chicken Formula ingredients are as follows:  Chicken, Chicken Broth, Liver, Dried Egg Product, Brewer's Rice, Dried Potatoes, Barley, Peas, Guar Gum, Flaxseed Meal, Carrots, Potassium Chloride, Dried Cranberries, Dried Blueberries, Apples, Carrageenan (sorry, but that stuff is in everything, even most human food!!), Taurine, Dried Chicory Root, Yucca Schidera Extract, Dried Kelp, Salt, Dried Parsley, Iron Proteinate, Zinc Proteinate, Vitamin E Supplement, Choline Chloride, Thiamine Mononitrate, Copper Proteinate, Manganese Proteinate, Sodium Selenite, Niacin Supplement, d-Calcium Pantothenate, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Riboflavin Supplement, Vitamin A Supplement, Biotin, Potassium Iodide, Vitamin D3 Supplement, Vitamin B12 Supplement, Folic Acid.

It's good in the Protein to fat ration as well -- ideal is 3:2, and this is:  Crude protein (min) 9.0%, crude fat (min) 6.0%, Crude Fiber (max), Moisture (max) 78%, Taurine (min) 0.05% 1.5%, Omega 6 Fatty acids (min) 0.50%, Omega 3 Fatty acids (min) 0.10%, vitamin E (min)  25 IU/kg.  Calorie content is 1140 Kcal/Kg = 177 calories per can.

They also make a 4Heath dry food, but I'm still happy with my Chicken Soup for the Cat Lovers Soul dry food, and the cats like it better than the 4Health dry food -- maybe because they are used to it.  I think price is approximately the same for the dry food, but the canned food is SO much better quality than any other canned food available for the price and they do seem to love it. 

I love (&so does my kitten!) Soulistic by PetCo. I perfer the pouch one, but they also have it in cans in either 3 oz or 5.5 it comes in the option of gelee in can as well. Here is a link to them

Pouch
http://www.petco.com/product/113118...Adult-Cat-Food-Pouches.aspx?CoreCat=LookAhead

Can w/Gravy
http://www.petco.com/product/110264/Soulistic-Adult-Canned-Cat-Food-in-Gravy.aspx?CoreCat=LookAhead

Can w/Gelee

http://www.petco.com/product/110263/Soulistic-Adult-Canned-Cat-Food-in-Gelee.aspx?CoreCat=LookAhead