As with everything right now, from weekly groceries to utility bills, pet owners may have noticed an increase in some pet care costs like insurance and food as well. My two rescue dogs Phoebe and Frank tolerate a lot of food.
Together they munch on a 12kg bag of quality kibble a month, which costs around £65. Good quality dog food – first of all, it’s pretty hard to come by, but it’s also quite expensive.
We often stretch out our dogs’ dinners with some wet meat to cut costs, and make our bag of kibble even better as our usual bag of Canagan chicken has just gone up by around £5 a bag. Personally, I’m pretty picky about what we feed my two Staffordshire Bull Terrier crosses, but there’s nothing wrong with a cheat day once in a while, much like a can of cheap dog food won’t kill them once in a while.
CONTINUE READING:I compared six supermarket ketchups to Heinz and a 75p bottle was the best
Not only that, but regardless of what others think of the pet food industry and what they feed their pets, being fed at all is better than starving. And with the cost of living in crisis, it only makes sense to look at some of the cheapest options on the market to ensure your pooch has a meal in their bowl at the end of the day.
But if you’re curious about how nutritious your chosen pet food is, feel free to browse further All about dog food for a percentage rating. I’ve visited M&S, Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Aldi, Asda and Morrisons to find the best value dog food for those who need to save a few pennies here and there – and found a few options that I’d also like to feed myself every once in a while .
However, one of them didn’t smell good and another one looked like cat food! Here’s what I found:
price and size
We usually feed Phoebe and Frank a 12 oz tray of Forthglade turkey wet meat for dinner, which usually lasts four days and keeps very well in the fridge. So we compared the rest of the supermarket range to this one, which normally costs £1.40 – or 17p per day per dog.
M&S offered the smallest tray at 150g for 45p, which was only enough for Phoebe and Frank for one meal each. It might have been a bit more meat than we would normally feed, but otherwise it wouldn’t have been worth leaving the rest in the tray for the next day.
All the other supermarkets were selling 300g trays, each lasting two days, but in terms of price, Aldi came in at 49p, while Tesco, Asda and Morrisons were all charging 60p. The most expensive tray came from Sainsburys at 65p.
But even at 65p over two days the price per bowl was 16p, so a little cheaper than our usual Forthglade. In comparison, it would cost 12p a day to top our dogs’ meals with Aldi food.
appearance and texture
You’d think dog food is dog food, right? Even I thought all those supermarket dog meat chunks would look like the same processed crap in a can, but I was wrong. In fact, some of them looked like they could be spread on toast and passed off as a pie. Not that I would recommend that.
Four of the dog foods were very pasty, including M&S, Sainsbury’s, Asda and Morrisons, although M&S’s was the only one that appeared to contain visible vegetables, with some easily identifiable carrots. Sainsbury’s was very firm but easy to spread, and Morrisons’ was quite crushable too.
Meanwhile, Tesco’s dog food was more like cat food, with chunks of beef in gravy, actually not too dissimilar to a pie filling. On the other hand, Aldi food was more like a mousse or puree, fairly fluffy in texture but made to be easily washed off after eating.
Asda’s was the only dog food that had an unpleasant odor, which really made me wrinkle my nose – but the rest was nothing short of what you’d expect from pet food.
taste and judgement
I left the food to the experts: seven-year-old picky Phoebe and four-year-old drooling Master Frank. Every single bowl was licked clean within minutes, so it’s safe to say none of them were inedible.
So picking a winner is really up to the owner – based on cost and how happy I would be to swap out our usual meal for a cheaper tray. Personally, if I were to choose to cut costs with a supermarket dog food I’d be leaning towards Sainsbury’s, but as I’d technically only be saving about 1p a day I think I’ll stick with Forthglade.
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