Think All Raw Food Is the Same? Think Again - How to Look Past the Marketing.

Why Raw Food Makes Sense for Dogs and Cats, and How to Tell the Good From the Marketing

We believe that a properly balanced, carefully sourced raw diet is the best everyday food for most dogs and cats.

The truth is that not every product labelled “raw” is a good quality food. Raw doesn’t mean putting some ground meat and bones into a bowl and calling it a balanced diet. A package covered in wolves, forests and words like ancestral doesn't automatically contain quality food. We see a lot of ‘health washing’ out there in the pet food marketing world! 

Quality raw food isn’t magic, although in our experience, many people feel it is once they switch their pets over! It's simply food presented in a form that closely matches the biology of the animal eating it: animal based, moisture rich, nutrient dense and minimally processed.

Important words in the raw world are balanced, carefully sourced and properly formulated. Defining what each manufacturer means when they use those words is where a highly educated pet food store who has done the research for you, can help.

Dogs Are Facultative Carnivores

Dogs are commonly described as facultative carnivores. This means they are carnivorous animals with enough metabolic flexibility to get nutrition from some non animal foods when necessary.

Dogs can usually digest starch (carbs). During domestication, many dog populations developed more copies of the AMY2B gene involved in pancreatic starch digestion. However, the number of copies varies considerably among dogs and dog populations. Some ancient and less agricultural breeds have fewer copies than many modern breeds. This doesn’t mean that dogs digest starch carbs easily though!

This ability helped dogs survive alongside humans. It does not prove that dogs require starch or that a heavily starch based diet is their nutritional ideal.

There is an important difference between:

“A dog can digest this.”

and

“This is the best foundation for a thriving dog’s lifelong diet.”

Dogs are members of the order Carnivora. Their digestive systems are highly effective at using animal protein and fat. They can also benefit from appropriate amounts of fiber, vegetables, berries and other functional plant ingredients. The fact that they can use both does not mean meat and starch are nutritionally interchangeable.

A good raw dog food recognizes this. Animal ingredients provide the nutritional foundation. Plant ingredients, when included, should serve a clear purpose rather than acting as inexpensive bulk, or worse, make up the majority of the meal.

Cats Are Obligate Carnivores

Cats are not dogs with different nutrient numbers. They are obligate carnivores.

An obligate carnivore is an animal whose metabolism depends on nutrients naturally supplied by animal protein. They must get nutrients from meat. Cats have unusually high protein and amino acid requirements. They continuously use amino acids for energy and maintain high rates of protein oxidation and glucose production, even when less protein is being eaten. They also have specific dietary requirements involving nutrients such as taurine, arginine, arachidonic acid and preformed vitamin A.

These are features of feline metabolism.

Research examining the natural diets of free roaming cats estimated that approximately 52% of their food energy came from protein, 46% from fat and only 2% from carbohydrate. (1)

Cats can digest some properly prepared starch. Again, that does not mean starch is an appropriate major calorie source for an obligate carnivore.

For cats in particular, a diet should be:

• Rich in appropriate animal protein
• Moisture rich
• Moderate in animal fat
• Very low in unnecessary carbohydrate
• Properly balanced for taurine, minerals, fatty acids and vitamins

Raw food can provide this extremely well, but only when the formula has been built for a cat rather than simply repackaged from a dog food recipe. You can often see a well formulated raw food that is built for cats, that is also suitable for dogs. Ensuring the balance is appropriate for your pet is important.

Why We Prefer Raw

It starts with the right foods

A well made raw diet begins with recognizable animal ingredients: muscle meat, organs, appropriate bone or another carefully calculated mineral source, and any additional ingredients needed to complete the formula.

These ingredients naturally supply amino acids, fatty acids, minerals, vitamins and moisture in a food matrix dogs and cats are well equipped to digest.

This does not eliminate the need for formulation. It means the formulation begins with actual food rather than building a food shaped product around starch.

Balanced

A balanced or ‘complete’ diet means different things to different people. Pet Grocer refers to a balanced diet as one that meets the minimum nutrient requirements as set out by AAFCO or FEDIAF. AAFCO is the North American standards for minimum nutrients and FEDIAF is the European standard. As of 2026, FEDIAF is currently the superior source for information. They update their science and recommendations more frequently, and have more realistic calorie expectations for household pets. Talking about what ‘balanced’ means in the pet food world could take up an entire article on its own, so for now, we will simply state that a balanced diet would need to meet one of those two bodies of works nutrient requirements.

The unfortunate situation in the raw food world for pets, is that there is no control over who is using what terms. We see a lot of companies using terms like balanced, complete, meal, dinner, and more – some of them have been carefully balanced to meet all those nutrient requirements. Others have not. If getting a fully balanced diet is important to you for your pet, make sure you ask your manufacturer what standard they have formulated their diet to meet, and furthermore, ask them to prove it! Pictures of beautiful cuts of meat and veggies on the front of the bag may not be the reality for what is actually going in there.

We routinely ask all our manufacturers for their complete nutritional profile if they claim AAFCO or FEDIAF balance. If they can’t provide it, we don’t accept or believe in those diets as truly balanced, regardless of what they claim on their bags and in their advertising. For those foods, we recommend people only use them as treats (for example Smack dehydrated food won't provide evidence of their balance, so we sell it as a treat), or for raw frozen foods people can use it as a rotational add in to their other actual balanced raw foods (for example 80/10/10 diets or frames based foods – Healthy Paws, Congo, Just Raw, Fish Lake Road). There are many other brands that we will not to stock or sell, as they don’t meet even our minimum requirements for a rotational food add in diet.  See below for our list of brands and where they land on the balance or not balanced list.

Raw diets can be highly digestible

Controlled feeding studies have repeatedly found properly made raw meat diets to be highly digestible in dogs and cats. Studies have also reported reduced fecal volume, changes in fecal moisture and pH, and substantial differences in fermentation products and intestinal microbial populations compared with extruded foods (kibble). (2, 3, 4, 5, 6)

Less stool by itself isn’t proof that a diet is healthier. It does, however, show that more of the food is being digested and absorbed rather than being passed through as waste.

Many raw fed families notice this difference quickly - smaller stools, less stool volume and often less frequent bowel movements. The poops compost quickly (within a matter of days during the summer), making your yard a clean and easy one to maintain compared to kibble poops, which seem to last forever.

Moisture belongs in food

Fresh animal protein naturally contains a great deal of water. Raw food provides that moisture as part of every meal.

This is especially important for cats, which evolved obtaining much of their water through prey. In controlled research, cats eating a high moisture diet had greater total water intake, produced more urine and had more dilute urine than cats eating a low moisture diet. Given how many cats end up with kidney disease, this is an extremely important consideration.

A water bowl beside a dry food dish does not recreate the same total water intake as consuming moisture throughout the meal.

Dogs generally do a better job of drinking water from a bowl, but they also benefit from eating food that already contains water. My own Frenchie barely drinks water – she obtains nearly all her water from foods.

Less intensive processing changes the food less

Extruded kibble is produced using grinding, pressure, high temperatures and starch expansion. Starch is not merely included as a nutrient - it is needed to help form and hold the kibble together.

Heating food is not automatically harmful. Cooking can improve the digestibility and safety of certain ingredients. A properly made gently cooked food may be an excellent choice for some animals.

The concern is the cumulative effect of intensive processing.

Heat processing can cause Maillard reactions between sugars and amino acids. These reactions create flavour and browning, but they can also reduce the availability of amino acids such as lysine. Commercial pet foods and treats have been shown to contain measurable concentrations of Maillard reaction products.

Research comparing food formats has also found differences in amino acid digestibility, energy availability, stool characteristics and microbiome composition among raw, freeze dried, gently cooked and extruded products. However, the ingredients and nutrient profiles of the tested products are not always identical, so processing can’t be blamed for every difference. (See multiple sources at the end of the article).

That distinction matters. We prefer raw because it can deliver high quality ingredients with minimal processing - not because we believe all heated or cooked food is bad.

Diet changes the intestinal ecosystem

Raw and minimally processed diets consistently produce different intestinal microbial populations than extruded kibble diets. (See multiple sources at the end of the article). Raw fed dogs tend to have more organisms associated with protein and fat metabolism, while higher carbohydrate extruded foods support a different fermentation environment.

What the research clearly demonstrates is that diet format and macronutrient composition have a major effect on the gut microbiome. Food is not simply a collection of guaranteed analysis numbers that becomes nutritionally identical once swallowed. Bioavailability matters.

Raw Is Not Automatically Balanced

This is where responsible raw feeding separates itself from ideology.

Meat is not a complete diet. Boneless ground meat is not a complete diet. An arbitrary mixture of meat, organs and bone is not automatically a complete diet.

A diet can look beautifully natural and still contain too little, or too much calcium, phosphorus, zinc, copper, iodine, manganese, vitamin D, vitamin E, essential fatty acids or other nutrients.

Cats add further complexity because taurine, arachidonic acid and other feline specific requirements must be properly addressed.

Lab assessments of commercial and homemade raw foods have found meaningful nutritional variation and, in some products, inadequate or excessive mineral and nutrient concentrations. This can be deadly dangerous for pets (as we saw with Hill’s Science Diet medicated veterinary diets causing pet deaths in 2019).

This doesn’t prove that raw food is inherently unbalanced. It proves that formulation matters.

A balanced raw food should be developed using reliable nutrient data, appropriate nutrient targets and ingredient specifications. Ideally the company should verify the finished product through laboratory analysis rather than relying entirely on a spreadsheet. As our knowledge of nutrition expands, so too should the measurements used by manufacturers to ensure they stay up to date with current balanced information.

Meeting a recognized nutrient profile is a safety baseline. It is not proof that the ingredients are excellent, highly digestible or thoughtfully sourced.

Carefully Sourced Means More Than “Canadian Made”

A product can be manufactured in Canada using ingredients from several countries. It can use Canadian meat but imported supplements. It can be prepared in a beautiful facility while buying poorly documented raw materials.

None of those things automatically makes the product good or bad. The point is that the company should know, and be willing to tell you, where its ingredients come from and how they are controlled.

Quality raw food manufacturers should be able to discuss:

• The source and grade of their meats
• Which organs and tissues are included, including lung and liver percentages
• Their bone or mineral sources
• Supplier approval and incoming ingredient standards
• Lot identification and traceability
• Cold chain and storage controls
• Pathogen testing or other food safety procedures
• Whether high pressure processing (HPP), bacteriophage or another intervention is used
• Finished product nutrient testing
• How often recipes and nutrient analyses are reviewed

Raw animal products require responsible handling and a proper food safety program.

We don’t believe every quality raw food needs to use the same safety methods. We do believe every manufacturer should have a real method and should be able to explain it.

How Raw Food Gets “Health Washed”

Health washing happens when marketing language creates the impression of quality without providing the information needed to prove it.

Words such as these may sound reassuring:

• Natural
• Premium
• Holistic
• Ancestral
• Raw inspired
• Raw coated
• Farm fresh
• High meat
• Human grade
• Superfood
• Biologically appropriate
• Balanced
• Complete

None of these words tells you whether the food is actually balanced to a standard. They don’t tell you how much carbohydrate it contains. None tell you the source or quality of its minerals. None tell you whether its nutrient content has been laboratory verified. None tell you if they are padding their food with huge amounts of lung rather than meat.

A kibble sprayed with a small amount of raw material is still kibble. A freeze dried product is not automatically balanced because it is freeze dried. A food containing blueberries and turmeric is not automatically healthier than one without them.

Functional ingredients can be useful. They can’t compensate for a poor nutritional foundation.

Questions to Ask Before Choosing a Raw Food

Is it a complete food or a rotational product?

Some raw products are intended as complete diets. Others are meat blends, bases or rotational foods that require additional ingredients.

The front of the package may not make the difference obvious.

Was it formulated specifically for dogs, cats or both?

Dogs and cats do not have identical nutrient requirements. A company selling the same recipe for both species should be able to explain exactly how the formula meets feline needs.

What nutrient standard and life stage does it address?

Adult maintenance, growth, reproduction and all life stage foods have different requirements. Puppies (especially large breed puppies) and kittens leave less room for careless mineral formulation.

Can the company provide a typical nutrient analysis?

A guaranteed analysis provides only a few minimum and maximum values. It does not show the complete nutrient profile.

Ask for typical values and compare foods on a dry matter basis or calorie basis. Comparing the as fed protein number of a moisture rich raw food directly with dry kibble is misleading.

What are the calcium and phosphorus amounts?

“Contains ground bone” is not an analysis. The company should know the actual calcium and phosphorus concentrations and how consistently they are controlled.

What are the carbohydrate and fiber levels?

Carbohydrate doesn't have to appear on pet food guaranteed analyses. That doesn't mean it is absent. A little functional fiber is very different from a food relying on starch, legumes or vegetables for a large percentage of its calories.

Are the ingredients clearly named?

“Beef liver” tells you something. “Animal byproduct” does not. Transparency matters more than pretty ingredient descriptions.

Who makes the food and how is each batch tracked?

A quality company should know where and when a batch was produced and which ingredients went into it. Traceability matters if something goes wrong.

Does the company answer difficult questions?

This may be the most revealing test. Good companies do not have to be perfect. They do need to be honest, informed and willing to explain their decisions.

The Raw Brands We Carry - Ranked

We do not rank foods according to which company has the most compelling advertising, the prettiest packaging or the best retailer promotion.

We look at formulation, ingredient quality, sourcing, transparency, nutrient data, processing, food safety practices, integrity, consistency, availability, pricing and simply how well pets seem to do on the food long term.

Our ranking may change when recipes, ownership, sourcing or manufacturing practices change.

Being ranked last among the foods we carry does not necessarily mean a product is unsuitable. Pet Grocer already filters out many foods before they ever reach our freezers! A lower ranked product may still be a practical choice because of price, availability, protein selection or an individual animal’s needs. If a food isn’t included on our list, it means it didn’t meet our requirements to be included in our store.

1. Iron Will Raw

Why it ranks here:
HACCP certified facility, located in Ontario, using North American ingredients. Quality ingredients are used in both the Nothing But line (basic meat, bone and organ for the DIYers, or pets with intolerances) and in the Performance Blend/Canine Complete line (balanced to AAFCO standards, including fish oils for omega 3 content). Iron Will has allowed us to tour their facility, answered all our detailed questions, provided us with detailed nutrient analysis for their diets and has representatives that are quick to reply to our often challenging questions. They offer a guarantee on their food, which Pet Grocer honours in store for local in store shoppers. They have balanced canine and feline products. Packaging comes in easy peel bricks in either 1 lbs or ½ lbs bricks. Food comes in boxes of various sizes depending upon which product you are looking at (typically 4 lbs, 6 lbs, 12 lbs, 24 lbs for dogs and in 3 lbs boxes for cats). Balanced lines are separated between species (one line for cats, one line for dogs).

Best suited for:
Price point is competitive with other lesser quality brands, Iron Will has always been aggressive about quality at the lowest price they could manage for the customer. That appears true still today. The Nothing But/Basics line is ideal for dogs or cats with food intolerances, to use for elimination diets. We like their OG and Nothing But food for pets with cancer who want to use keto in their treatment options.

They have two balanced puppy recipes. Ideal for growing pups!

Points to consider:
The balanced line uses fish oils to provide omega 3s. This is a challenge for some dogs. They use synthetics for balancing the food.

2. Tollden Farms

Why it ranks here:
Tollden Farms has been making cat and dog raw diets for longer than most people knew raw feeding was even a thing. They have their production down to a fine science. Original recipes work great and pets thrive on this food. The company offers transparency. They have provided all their detailed nutritional profiles right on their website so we didn’t even have to ask for them! Contains fish oil for omega 3s. They use enough heart meat to make it balanced for both dogs and cats (good taurine levels).  Staff are quick to respond to our questions. We haven’t toured them yet due to them being so far away from us. Located in Ontario. Their food is in hamburger shaped patties that come in ¼ lbs or ½ lbs patties which defrost fairly quickly in the fridge. We find this food the most comfortable for vegan owners to handle. Tollden also has a ‘Can Be Cooked’ line – the Beef, Lamb, Kangaroo and Boar flavours all use calcium carb rather than bone, and can be cooked. Bags are clearly marked if they can be cooked. Their line is available in 3 lbs bag (1/4 pound patties) or 8 lbs bag (1/2 pound patties).

Best suited for:
Cats and small dogs love this food! The patties are easy to defrost. They have both a botanical line and a vegetable line. Botanical line is unique in the market and ideal for pets with pancreas or liver challenges (burdock root in the recipe – a favourite ingredient at Pet Grocer), and especially ideal for cats as the botanical line more closely mimics what would be in the stomach content of natural prey. Taurine levels are good in this food, necessary for cats and dogs.

They have two puppy recipes that are mostly intended as weaning tools, not fully used for feeding a growing puppy long term. Look to Iron Will for longer term balanced puppy growth formulations.

Points to consider:
Food comes in bags rather than boxes so can be a bit harder to store if freezer space is limited. They use fish oils to provide omega 3s. This is a challenge for some dogs.

3. Green Juju

Why it ranks here:
Green Juju is from the USA, so we won’t hold that against them. The reason we won’t is because their sourcing is unlike any other food on the market in North America, as far as I know. They know their farmers and source meats from sustainable farms with well cared for animals. Grass fed, pasture raised, or wild caught – their values are reflected in the farms they partner with. Veggies and other ingredients are organic or fair trade certified. They care deeply and passionately about what is being put in their food. We used to be able to get their goat milk – in my opinion it was the best goat milk available on the market including when you stack it up against human consumption goat milk. Sadly, they aren’t importing the goat milk into Ontario anymore (as of 2026). Because they are a USA brand, they use HPP processing. This is a high pressure treatment that is used to eliminate bacteria in the food. We don’t love HPP – it does denature the food to an extent, and hope they may move to other methods in the future. However, even HPP has a place in our shelves – if your dog or cat has immune challenges, or is on steroid medications, this food is way way way better than dry food and remains safe for them to eat! Had dental surgery recently? They can eat this. There are no bacteria concerns with HPP foods.

This food also has very minimal ingredient panels – take a look and see for yourself! Green Juju frozen raw is balanced to AAFCO standards for both dogs and cats. They did feeding trials and answer information about their balance in many podcasts and social media posts. They have frozen raw, freeze dried raw, freeze dried raw treats, and uniquely freeze dried veggies and greens mixes which are super popular and offer health benefits!

The frozen raw comes in 3 lbs bags, 6 lbs bags and a large bulk box. The 3 lbs bags have unique square 1 oz ‘sliders’ that are quick to defrost. The 6 lbs bags offer a standard half pound patty.

We love Green Juju because of the passionate beliefs of the owners, and because they do things the right way – which is often the hard way. They are a small dedicated team.

Best suited for:
This is by far the best food for dogs with pancreas challenges that want to stay on raw foods, and for dogs with allergies. The low number of ingredients makes this ideal for pets that need elimination diets. The huge quality difference in ingredients also helps get health challenged pets back on the right track quicker than other options. Small dogs and cats are more easily upset by small changes in nutritional profiles and ingredients (such as when Open Farm added more liver and coconut oil to their gently cooked lines and didn’t tell anyone or update the packaging). We find that Green Juju does amazing with small dogs and cats – those little bodies need high quality in order to stay in top shape and Green Juju delivers that. Ideal for pets that can’t tolerate fish oils – they use organ content to balance omega3 where they can.

Points to consider:
Because they are a small dedicated team, support is difficult or next to impossible to get. Because it is imported to Canada, there are frequent back orders, or products that get discontinued without notice. This is a trade issue more than a company issue, but the reality for pet owners is sometimes there are challenges getting it on the freezer shelf. Because they are so stringent about quality sourcing, the price point for this food is higher than any other food we carry. You get what you pay for in this case! Food comes in bags rather than boxes so can be a bit harder to store if freezer space is limited.

4. Red Dog Blue Kat

Why it ranks here:
Red Dog Blue Kat was well known for its high quality way of processing food! They were first to market with a canine and feline species specific probiotic in their foods. They were the first in Canada to use bacteriophage as a way to ensure they have safe raw foods without denaturing the food. They processed the foods in a way that was extremely easy to digest.  Those things are all still true today (August 2026). They have so many various lines it can make your head spin. This is both a point in their favour and a ‘point to consider’ as a challenge. We are a higher end, raw focused, health food store for pets and we are highly motivated to understand and sell good quality foods to people for their pets. Even with that, we struggled to understand the huge number of items, how they differed in each line, and how to explain it in a way that made it easy for people to understand. The quality is amazing, figuring out which one is right to feed your pet is a bit more challenging. We carry a small selection of this line now, mostly the Foundations line for dogs and cats. The pets who use it, love it. They have raw frozen, and a gently dehydrated raw that is suitable for treats, or for feeding while camping or traveling.

Best suited for:
This is a high quality food made safely and done right. Determining what you are using it for will help you decide which line is right for you (Foundations is a basic line used for rotational feeding, or for highly allergic pets; Everyday Raw is the balanced foods which make feeding easy and balance just comes naturally while feeding it). Cats especially love this food and Tollden Farms Botanicals. They are our top selling Canadian raw foods for cats.

Points to consider:
They have been recently bought out by Actual Pet Foods, and we will wait to see what changes the new company makes to how this food is processed, and sourced. RDBK was an outlier in the raw feeding world and did things the hard way, in a country that doesn’t reward companies for doing the right thing (Canada doesn’t have the same effective costs surrounding sourcing, manufacture and shipping – it is unbelievably expensive to make a good food in Canada). The products lines are honestly too varied and confusing to have great successes in retail stores, so we suspect the line will get tidied up a bit and what is offered may change. We will wait hopefully to see what happens – in the meantime, we carry and love the Foundations lines for cats and dogs and your pets will love it too! Many of the items in this line use fish oils to provide omega 3s. This is a challenge for some dogs.

No tour of this facility due to being in another province. New ownership may change how this is produced, so we will wait to ask for video tours once they decide what changes will be put in place for manufacturing.

5. Primal Pet Foods

Why it ranks here:
Primal is another USA brand, one of the first big ones to do a good job of sourcing and creating balanced raw foods for pets. They had a long history of great customer service and a good quality offering of AAFCO balanced foods. They have unique shapes that help earn them a place on the freezer shelf in our store. They offer half pound patties, 1 oz nuggets, and a Pronto mix which is small approx. 1 cm squares that defrost in a pronto! Our store primarily carries the nuggets and the pronto mix. They have both raw frozen and freeze dried recipes. They use HPP processing on their poultry items (see notes above about HPP). They tend to be veg heavy in our opinion, but it doesn’t change the fact that pets like this food and do well on it long term. It is balanced to AAFCO standards for cats and dogs in each individual line (one for cats, one for dogs). Most recipes include some of the more detailed nutritional analysis right on the website.

Best suited for:
Primal is a great one for small dogs and cats. I am always surprised by how much cats love this line, given the heavier inclusion of veg. Feeding a large dog on this line in Canada can start to get costly, similar to Green Juju, so we find many people use it rotationally with other lines to help mitigate the cost factor. I love using this for the fast defrost. When I’ve forgotten to pull out food, I can scoop out some of the pronto and it will be ready in 15 minutes to serve. I also like the small bit of clay they include in their food, and feel it helps to bind to some of the more challenging ingredients that end up in foods naturally, which can be an issue for yeasty dogs. Clay can be a great helper for those allergy/yeasty dogs.

Points to consider:
We lost a bit of love for this brand when the brand's second owner introduced Kibble in the Raw and tried to pass it off as a great healthy alternative. We didn’t buy into that story and we don’t carry that part of their product line. We felt like they sold out trying to tell us that sorghum is a high quality food product to add into food for pets. A little bit of health washing went on with the marketing in that case. The balanced frozen raw and freeze dried lines use fish oils to provide omega 3s. This is a challenge for some dogs. This brand has also recently been bought out a second time, now owned by Canadian company Pure Treats. Time will tell what changes occur with this second set of new owners. For now, we like and feed the frozen Primal to our own pets.

Being in the USA we haven’t toured them, but previous sales reps have showed me video (before AI was a thing) that showed them walking through plant tours when the original owner still operated it. We haven’t seen anything since the two sales of this company in the recent years.

6. Just Raw

Why it ranks here:
Just Raw is a unique company. They are a small Ontario based manufacturer, which allowed us to tour their facility. They also went a step further than any other manufacturer ever that we have vetted – they gave us their entire supplier list (in a binder they showed to everyone at a trade show – that is huge transparency) and they showed us their recipes after we signed a non-disclosure agreement. This allowed us to create a powdered pre-mix that people can use to fully balance their food. They are the top of the line when it comes to the unbalanced lines we carry. They do not balance to any of today’s accepted standards and are more typical of the 80/10/10 mix you see in non-balanced foods. Just Raw has a slightly different balance – as stated on their boxes they have 75% Meat / 10% Bones/ 10% Organs / 5% Fruits and Vegetables. We like them because they make food they way foods used to be made – you take the whole chicken (minus the feather, head and feet) and grind it into a whole food serving. They use real meats, not frames.

As an aside: Most of the unbalanced food market uses frames (where the good meat is taken off to be used in the human grocery chain, and the left over carcass is what is put in and then called ‘chicken’, or ‘duck’, etc.). Frames based foods are super unbalanced, pets tend to naturally stop eating them after awhile and owners come saying their pet is now “picky”. They also tend to cause chalky poops from the lack of necessary meat in the diet.

To be clear: Just Raw does not do this. They put in the whole thing – meat and all. Dogs and cats love this food because they can smell all those natural amino acids in there – a true whole food meal. This means the line does have chunkier pieces of bone in it. Some cats and small dogs will eat around those bones that are too large for their body to easily digest.

They have two lines the Pure and the Complete. The pure is just meat, bone and organ. The Complete (a word we really dislike being used in unbalanced foods in our industry but is done all the time) is a blend of the meat, bone, organ, and fruit and veg mix. They come in 1 lbs bricks, in either 6 lbs boxes or 24 lbs mixed boxes with a variety of flavours.

Why we still carry it:
While we prefer the more balanced recipes, we know that not every budget is ready for the top of the line fully balanced meals. When it comes to the unbalanced manufacturers out there, it is the wild west. Pet Grocer has done the job of vetting our suppliers and picking what we feel is the best for each different client need. The price point of unbalanced foods tends to be the selling point for these foods. Just Raw is an exception to that rule. It is priced higher than most other unbalanced foods, simply because they include so much real meat. Real meat is expensive. Frames are cheap. Dogs and cats love this food because it has real meat.

They also have single proteins in their foods – duck is all duck, rabbit is all rabbit, chicken is all chicken. This is ideal for dogs with intolerances or allergies or when you need to do an elimination diet.

Points to consider:
This diet is not balanced and needs to be used on a rotational basis with other proteins and brands ideally. Considering the lack of balance, the price point hurts a bit here – but the proof remains in the fact that cats and dogs like this food long term.

7. Congo

Why it ranks here:
Congo has been around for a long time, with a mostly stable line up. From what I understand the company started up to feed working line dogs; the original owner still retains ownership and works this business daily. They are a small manufacturer located in Ontario. They have two lines – dinners are the mixes that include veg and fruit and blends are meat, bone, organ only. The people who like Congo really like Congo! They have a decent lamb and beef line as well.

Why we still carry it:
While we prefer the more balanced recipes, we know that not every budget is ready for the top of the line fully balanced meals. When it comes to the unbalanced manufacturers out there, it is the wild west. Pet Grocer has done the job of vetting our suppliers and picking what we feel is the best for each different client need. The price point of unbalanced foods tends to be the selling point for these foods. Congo has an aggressively good price point on their poultry, which is frames based. They also offer organic frames based chicken as an option.

[Most of the unbalanced food market uses frames (where the good meat is taken off to be used in the human grocery chain, and the left over carcass is what is put in and then called ‘chicken’, or ‘duck’, etc.). Frames based foods are super unbalanced, pets tend to naturally stop eating them after awhile and owners come saying their pet is now “picky”. They also tend to cause chalky poops from the lack of necessary meat in the diet.]

Points to consider:
They recently changed their lines to include mushrooms and honey. Because it is so recent, we are waiting to see how dogs tolerate the change to this line. Honey is not suitable for young puppies, and this diet is not designed to be balanced for puppies regardless. They also use banana, which is high in histamines and is not suitable for dogs with allergies, hot spots, and itching. We strongly recommend rotation from other non-frames based, preferably balanced, brands when feeding this food. Dogs tend to go off this food over time if fed exclusively a poultry based diet from frames. We haven’t been allowed to tour them as of yet, but we also haven’t pushed hard on this as a requirement to be included in our store. This diet is not balanced and needs to be used on a rotational basis with other proteins and brands ideally.

8. K9 Choice

Why it ranks here:
K9 Choice has been around for many years as well. They were founded by ranchers out west in Canada. Recently this company has been purchased by Actual Pet Foods are part of a large portfolio. K9 Choice offers unique serving style. Many of their product come in approximately 1 ½ inch squares. Great for defrosting, and some scent detection trainers use this to teach tracking! Because the original formulations were created and manufactured by the farms that grew some of the animals, quality became much easier to control. Their Buffalo and Beef Tripe are super sellers for us! They also have a very well priced bulk box – a 40 lbs multi mix which has a mix of all the flavours in those cubes in the bulk box, at one of the best price per pounds you’ll find in Canada. Quality of this is far superior to most frames based boxes. They are not balanced, however, and must be considered a rotational food.

They have the aforementioned 40 lbs multi mix box with the cubes, a variety of 15 pound boxes that have half pound patties, and a variety of 3 lbs bags with the cubes. Recently they introduced elk to some trial stores (we were one of them) and dogs love it! We love the inclusion of these more unique proteins to add diversity to the diet and the gut!

Previously it was difficult to get answers from this company, but the new owners are highly responsive and make getting information super easy. We haven’t toured them due to them being in a different province.

Why we still carry it:
While this is an unbalance, rotational based diet, we still believe the quality of the meats going into this food is potentially superior to others. We love the cubes as an easy to store and defrost shape, and it makes for easy to feed, interesting to use for training, options. As of today, they source all their proteins from Canada with the exception of kangaroo. Dogs tend to do well on this longer than some of the other unbalanced foods, in our experience.

Points to consider:
This is an unbalanced, rotational diet. Priced super aggressively, so this is an ideal add in to the balanced meals if you need to bring down your average price per month. Dogs tend to do well on this for an above average amount of time, but do show the ‘picky’ eating behaviour that comes with long term imbalance if fed exclusively. 

9. Fish Lake Road
We love the owners of Fish Lake Road! Great people, trying hard to do a good job in a tough marketplace. Fish Lake Road frozen raw foods are made with Arctic Charr. They offer pure raw charr, meals, and mixes with other proteins. They come in an 8 lbs box with ½ lbs patties or 24 lbs box with 1 lbs patties. Arctic Charr is unique in the pet food market – most fish are salmon, anchovy, sardine, mackerel, herring. I have only ever seen Charr from Fish Lake Road. When I researched the best fish to feed my human family many years ago, charr was one of the top of the list. Recently this company moved away from co-packing (where another facility made the food for them) to building their own production facility. This enables them to have much tighter quality control. We trust the integrity of the owners of this company and we love charr – together this is a great match!

Why it ranks here:
The reason this is lower on this list is because of the frames based element. Frames based in fish leaves a lot of bone, without a lot of meat. These are very bone heavy meals. The majority of the meat is used to feed humans, with the remaining amount turned into pet food. Because it is so high in bone content, we can only recommend this as a rotational add in product, not a routine diet. The foods that have the charr plus another protein may be better meat to bone ratios, but still remain unbalanced overall. Creating this food is very expensive, so we understand the reasoning for the recipe as it stands. Pets can still benefit greatly from the addition of the charr based meal – especially if you need to add a natural source of calcium (seniors with high or moderate protein diets would do great with this as a topper with each meal).

Why we still carry it:
Because we know it is not balanced, and it is heavy in bone, we can’t recommend the pure charr meals as a daily routine diet, but we can heartily recommend it as a topper or add in. We especially love how much we can trust this company and the integrity behind it.

Points to consider:
Pets need more meat than the charr meal alone can provide. Using the charr that is blended with other meats helps to offset the bone content.

10. Back2Raw

Why it ranks here:
Back2Raw was a product line we carried when the original owners were still small and doing the deliveries themselves. Over time, we disagreed with the integrity and changes they made and removed it from our store. While it remained popular, our difference in values precluded us from selling it. Recently, Actual Pet Foods acquired this line and made immediate and measurable changes for the better. We are glad to add this popular food back to our shelves. They have a food line up that includes two lines: like most they have a line with veg and fruit called Complete (but it is not balanced or complete) and a line without (called Basics, also not balanced). Another example of marketing you want to be aware of. They have unusual mixes (dinners and blends) and we recommend you visit our website to see what is included in each box.

They come in frozen 1 lbs bricks, in 4 lbs or 12 lbs boxes.

Why we still carry it:
Regardless of the balance issue, dogs tend to do well on this food. We don’t see dogs going off it naturally over time like we do with some of the other unbalanced diets. They use some organic veggies and fruits. The complete lines are using a 80/10/10 mix. They are priced competitively.

Points to consider:
Recently purchased by Actual Pet Foods (along with Iron Will, Red Dog Blue Kat, K9 Choice), we are eager to see what manufacturing changes are made to this food. In the past we removed this food from our shelves due to the previous ownership business practices. The new owners of Actual Pet Foods have cleaned up the administrative side of things dramatically and immediately – we have been told other improvements are on the way. This is why we have added the line back to our freezer shelves. Most of this line has mixed proteins for the competitively priced products.

Brands We Don’t Carry

Rather than naming names, we will say this: if we don’t carry it, we have a good reason not to.

There are rare exceptions to this. Vital Essentials is one of them. They are a raw brand from the USA with an extremely limited ingredient panel and unique processing. We are comfortable feeding this to our own pets, and offer it as a special order item to customers.

We do carry a few things that are super popular with people, but wouldn’t feed to our own pets. There are a few items in store that we carry because people really really want us to, but we do not recommend (for example antlers and DE and colloidal silver). We also special order in kibble for people who ask for it, but don't feed our pets kibble. If you are a customer of the Alliston, Ontario store, who is uncertain if a brand is something we recommend or not, please reach out directly to the store for help. 

Our Bottom Line

Dogs and cats deserve quality food chosen according to their biology - not according to which company has the largest advertising budget.

Dogs are flexible carnivores. Cats are strict carnivores. Both are designed to obtain substantial nutrition from animal protein, and both benefit from moisture rich foods.

A balanced raw diet can provide highly digestible animal protein, appropriate fat, naturally occurring moisture and carefully selected whole food nutrients without the intensive processing needed to manufacture shelf stable kibble.

But raw alone is not enough.

The food needs to be properly formulated. The ingredients must be appropriate. The manufacturer must take sourcing and food safety seriously. The company must be transparent enough to earn your trust.

That is the difference between raw food as a marketing category and raw food as good nutrition.

At Pet Grocer, we are not here to sell you the most fashionable freezer box. We’re here to help you understand what is in it - and whether it is the right food for the pet standing in front of you.

(1)    Plantinga, E. A., Bosch, G., & Hendriks, W. H. (2011). Estimation of the dietary nutrient profile of free-roaming feral cats: possible implications for nutrition of domestic cats. British Journal of Nutrition, 106(S1), S35–S48. https://research.wur.nl/en/publications/estimation-of-the-dietary-nutrient-profile-of-free-roaming-feral-/

(2)    A 26-week trial demonstrates that a raw, whole-food diet provides complete canine nutrition without synthetic additives. Honeys Raw Proof http://www.thebarkinglot.co.uk/images/Honeys-Raw-Proof-Report.pdf

(3)    Apparent total-tract macronutrient digestibility, serum chemistry, urinalysis, and fecal characteristics, metabolites and microbiota of adult dogs fed extruded, mildly cooked, and raw diets https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6127788/

(4)    Effects of inulin or yeast cell-wall extract on nutrient digestibility, fecal fermentative end-product concentrations, and blood metabolite concentrations in adult dogs fed raw meat-based diets https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22738053/

(5)    Apparent total tract energy and macronutrient digestibility and fecal fermentative end-product concentrations of domestic cats fed extruded, raw beef-based, and cooked beef-based diets https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22003235/

(6)    Apparent total tract nutrient digestibility of frozen raw, freeze-dried raw, fresh, and extruded dog foods and their effects on serum metabolites and fecal characteristics, metabolites, and microbiota of healthy adult dogs https://academic.oup.com/tas/article/doi/10.1093/tas/txae163/7908844?login=false

(7)    The effect of a kibble diet versus a raw meat-based diet on energy metabolism biomarkers in dogs https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1090023325001662?via%3Dihub

(8)    Early life programming by diet can play a role in risk reduction of otitis in dogs https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/veterinary-science/articles/10.3389/fvets.2023.1186131/full

(9)    The effect of puppyhood and adolescent diet on the incidence of chronic enteropathy in dogs later in life https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-27866-z

(10) Early Life Modifiable Exposures and Their Association With Owner Reported Inflammatory Bowel Disease Symptoms in Adult Dogs (2021) https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/veterinary-science/articles/10.3389/fvets.2021.552350/full

(11) Links to multiple studies: https://www.helsinki.fi/en/researchgroups/dogrisk-health-via-nutrition-epidemiology-and-disease-detection-dogs/research-nutrition-medical-scent-and-alert-dogs-animal-assisted-work/nutrition-related-research/nutrition-research

All comments in this article are opinion only. They are not to be taken as advice. Each pet is an individual and requires personal recommendations for their unique nutritional and medical needs. Information changes frequently, especially about individual manufacturers. Information shared here is to the best of our current knowledge at the time of posting, and may be incomplete. Please ensure you do your own due diligence.