Fresh cooked dog food, compared on the label
Captured
Fresh food is 72–82% water, which is why per-pound and per-box prices mislead so badly here. Dry-matter conversion below puts these recipes on the same scale as kibble; the cost tool does the same for price.
Foods
16
from 4 brands in the database
Protein, dry matter
24–38.9%
median 32.2% · 12 of 16 publish it
Calorie density
922–1,741kcal/kg
median 1,540 · 10 of 16 publish it
No analysis published
4
of these 16, and we name every manufacturer
| Composition | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fish & Sweet Potato | JustFoodForDogs | 38.9% | 11.1% | 82% | 922 | 75.9 g | |
| Beef Mash | Nom Nom | 34.8% | 21.7% | 77% | — | — | |
| Turkey + Quinoa | Spot & Tango | 34.5% | 20.7% | 71% | 1625 | 61.5 g | |
| Beef & Russet Potato | JustFoodForDogs | 34% | 28% | 75% | 1559 | 54.5 g | |
| Chicken Cuisine | Nom Nom | 33.3% | 16.7% | 76% | — | — | |
| Turkey & Whole Wheat Macaroni | JustFoodForDogs | 32.3% | 12.9% | 69% | 1741 | 57.4 g | |
| Turkey Fare | Nom Nom | 32.1% | 14.3% | 72% | — | — | |
| Beef Dish with Sweet Potatoes | Ollie | 32.1% | 25% | 72% | 1540 | 58.4 g | |
| Pork Potluck | Nom Nom | 32% | 20% | 75% | — | — | |
| Turkey & Chicken Cookout | Nom Nom | 29.2% | 20.8% | 76% | — | — | |
| Chicken & White Rice | JustFoodForDogs | 28.6% | 10.7% | 72% | 1530 | 52.3 g | |
| Lamb Pilaf | Nom Nom | 24% | 18% | 75% | — | — | |
| Chicken Dish with Carrots | Ollie | — | — | — | 1298 | — | |
| Lamb Dish with Cranberries | Ollie | — | — | — | 1540 | — | |
| Pork Dish with Apples | Ollie | — | — | — | 1540 | — | |
| Turkey Dish with Blueberries | Ollie | — | — | — | 1540 | — |
What the fresh filter means, and what it does not
Fresh cooked means gently cooked and then chilled or frozen, rather than extruded and dried. It is a format, taken from the manufacturer's own description of the product, and nothing more.
Water is the whole story on this page. A fresh recipe is mostly water by weight, which drags every label percentage down and makes the pack look far weaker than the food is. Converted to a dry-matter basis, the same recipe lands in the same range as a bag of kibble. It also means per-pound and per-box prices are close to meaningless here: you are buying calories, and the calorie density of these recipes is a fraction of a dry food's. The cost tool does that arithmetic against whatever you actually pay.
This page does not say that fresh food is better, more digestible or more natural than any other format. It costs more per calorie and more of it is water; whether either fact matters for a particular dog is a conversation with a vet, not a conclusion from a table.
Fresh is also the format where publication is thinnest. Several of these brands sell by subscription and serve their guaranteed analysis through an interactive widget, or not at all. Where that is the case the cells are hatched and the manufacturer is named, rather than filled from a retailer listing we cannot check.
16 formulas from 4 brands match this filter today. 12 publish a guaranteed analysis, 10 a calorie statement, 12 an ingredient list and 11 an AAFCO nutritional adequacy statement. Dry-matter protein across the 12 that publish it runs 24% to 38.9%, median 32.2% — against 18.7% to 50% across the whole database.
Captured 2026-07-25 Methodology