Kibble is pressure-cooked past 250°F, dried, then sprayed with flavor
To make a pellet that can sit in a bag for months, ingredients are ground into a starchy mash, steamed, then forced through a pressurized screw extruder. Kibble can spend 25 to 30 minutes in the process and get hotter than 250°F.
Then it's dried down to 10 to 12% moisture or less.
Then it's tumbled in fat and a flavor coating called “digest.” That coating is a big part of why dogs eat it.
Proteins and sugars react (the Maillard reaction, the same browning you get on toast). That locks up amino acids like lysine and creates new compounds. An analysis of 67 commercial pet foods estimated that dogs take in up to 122 times more of one of those compounds (HMF) than the average adult human, adjusted for body size.
Your dog eats that every meal. Every day. For years.Two meals a day is 730 bowls a year.
→ See what a Farmer's Dog bowl looks like insteadFresh food is gently cooked, so it still looks like food
The Farmer's Dog starts with human-grade meat and vegetables. It cooks them at lower temperatures than extrusion or canning, hot enough to kill pathogens and gentle enough to keep the food recognizable. Then it freezes the food and ships it to your door.
A Farmer's Dog bowl. You can see the meat and the vegetables.
- Made in facilities that meet human-food safety standards
- Recipes by board-certified veterinary nutritionists
- Pre-portioned to your dog's calorie needs, so there's no scoop-and-guess
- Over 1 billion meals delivered
No pellets. No flavor spray. No months-long shelf life.
It's also wet the way real food is wet. In a Farmer's Dog study, 72% of the water fresh-fed dogs took in came straight from their food, and they got 20% more water overall than kibble-fed dogs, even though they drank less from the bowl.
Real turkey and vegetables you can see through the pack, portioned and labeled for one dog.
2-minute quiz · See your dog's recipes and price · Free to look
What happened when dogs switched
This has been put to the test.
University of Illinois researchers fed the same dogs kibble and then fresh foods. On kibble, dogs had to eat more food to hold their weight and produced 1.5 to 2.9× as much poop.
That's how much of each food's calories came from carbohydrates in the Cornell-led study: kibble vs. The Farmer's Dog.
In a year-long Cornell-led study, senior dogs switched to The Farmer's Dog had lower blood levels of advanced glycation end products (AGEs) and higher levels of antioxidant-related compounds. The shift showed up in the first month and held all year.
In a 6-month study of 16 Labradors, a fresh-frozen diet improved stool consistency and raised butyrate, a beneficial gut fatty acid, compared with kibble.
“Thousands of veterinary professionals recommend our food, and feed it to their own dogs.” (The Farmer's Dog)
“He went from 100 pounds to 85 in 3 months. His coat looks better; thicker, softer, and shinier… Bonus, he loves it and never seems bored of it.”
“I just took my 12-year-old chocolate lab for her check up and she has lost 5 pounds in one month. She is keeping up with my six month old Australian shepherd puppy.”
Reviews as published by The Farmer's Dog. Individual results vary.
→ See what's in a Farmer's Dog bowlKibble vs. fresh, side by side
| Typical kibble | The Farmer's Dog → | |
|---|---|---|
| What you see | ✗Uniform brown pellets | ✓Recognizable meat and vegetables |
| How it's cooked | ✗Steamed, pressure-extruded, can exceed 250°F, then dried | ✓Gently cooked at lower temperatures |
| Why dogs eat it | ✗Sprayed with fat and flavor “digest” | ✓It smells like real food |
| Moisture | ✗Dried to 10 to 12% or less | ✓72% of dogs' water intake came from the food |
| Carbs (in the Cornell study) | ✗36.5% of calories | ✓3% of calories |
| Made in | ✗Pet-feed plants (most brands) | ✓Facilities that meet human-food standards |
| Portions | ✗A scoop and a guess | ✓Pre-portioned to your dog's calories |
| Poop | ✗Up to 2.9× more (vs. human-grade fresh) | ✓Less to scoop |
2-minute quiz · See your dog's recipes and price · Free to look
Check your dog's bag in 30 seconds
Grab the bag and look for three things:
- “Meal” near the top of the ingredients (e.g., “chicken meal”). It's a rendered powder, and The Farmer's Dog points out it can legally contain ingredients not permitted in human food.
- “With” in the product name. “Dog food with beef” only has to contain 3% beef.
- “Flavor” in the name. “Chicken flavor” means an ingredient provides the taste, not that the food is mostly chicken.
Found even one? Then you know what's in the bowl now. Here's what could be in it instead.
→ See the ingredients in a Farmer's Dog bowlThe part everyone guesses wrong: the price
Fresh, human-grade, portioned and delivered to your door sounds expensive. Plans start at about $2 a day.
Your dog's exact recipes and price come from a 2-minute quiz on breed, weight, age and activity. We can't show it here, because it's built for your dog.
Your first box is 60% off.
Because you're a Pet Parent Advisor reader, your first box is 60% off. That's an exclusive discount you only get through the links on this page. Free shipping. Pause or cancel anytime.
Claim My Exclusive60% Off First Box →
2-minute quiz · See your price before you pay · Cancel anytime
P.S. Look at the bowl tonight. If it's brown pellets that were pressure-cooked, dried and sprayed with flavor, now you know what's in it. To see what a Farmer's Dog bowl would look like for your dog, and what it costs with your exclusive 60% off the first box, → take the 2-minute quiz.
