Dry dog food, compared on the label
Edition updated
Kibble is roughly 10% water, so as-fed percentages are already close to dry-matter — but not identical, and the difference matters when you compare a 10% bag against a 78% can. Every figure below is converted and linked to its source.
Foods
143
from 24 brands in the database
Protein, dry matter
16.2–43.2%
median 29.5% · 142 of 143 publish it
Calorie density
3,020–4,390kcal/kg
median 3,655 · 139 of 143 publish it
No analysis published
1
of these 143, and we name every manufacturer
What the dry filter means, and what it does not
Dry food is cooked and dried until it is shelf-stable, which leaves it the least watery format in this database. That is the only thing this page selects on: the form the manufacturer sells the food in, as stated on its own label.
The consequence for reading the table is simple. Because kibble carries so little water, its as-fed label percentages already sit close to its dry-matter values, and the conversion moves them very little. Run the same conversion on a canned or fresh recipe and the figures roughly quadruple. That is why the columns below are dry-matter values rather than the percentages printed on the bag — it is the only way a bag and a tub can be read on one scale.
What the filter does not imply: nothing about ingredient quality, digestibility, processing temperature, or whether a given dog does well on kibble. Those are questions for the label in your hand and for a veterinarian, in that order, and this page answers none of them. It reports what each manufacturer published, and names the ones who published nothing.
The per-1,000-kcal column is the strictest comparison here, because it removes calorie density as well as water: it restates protein against the energy the food actually delivers, which is the basis AAFCO itself uses to write its nutrient profiles.
143 formulas from 24 brands match this filter today. 141 publish a guaranteed analysis, and 1 publishes EU analytical constituents; 139 publish a calorie statement, 138 an ingredient list and 118 an AAFCO nutritional adequacy statement. Dry-matter protein across the 142 that publish it runs 16.2% to 43.2%, median 29.5% — against 16.2% to 64.7% across the whole database.
Edition updated 2026-07-27 Methodology