# Dog food research...



## JohnnyBandit (Sep 19, 2008)

I switched to raw a while back. But I have seen a lot of threads on here comparing prices between brands of dog food. 

Well I did some informal research a while back and posted it on another forum. This is my data and my research originally posted in off topic of the Florida Sportman forum on April 16th, 2008

_A question was brought forth on another dog food thread last night. How much does a cup of Canidae weigh versus a cup of Purina?
The question got me to thinking. I have been saying it cost less to feed a dog better food because you feed fewer cups. But dog food is sold one weight but a cup of food is volume. So is it really less expensive to feed a better food that requires fewer cups?

Time for a test. 

After work today I stopped at the store. I bought a small bag of four brands of dog food. 
Iams Mini chunks
Purina One Lamb and Rice
Pedigree
Alpo Prime Cuts

I also bought a kitchen scale.

Before I left the store I notated the selling price and weight of the largest bag available in each variety.

Iams Mini Chunks 20lbs @ $19.69

Purina One Lamb and Rice 37.5lbs @$31.99

Pedigree 35.3lbs @ $16.99

Alpo Prime Cuts 17.6lbs @$6.49


I feed Canidae at 
40lbs @ $38.00


Next I figured out how much the cost was per ounce
Iams $0.061
Purina One $0.0533
Pedigree $0.03
Alpo $0.023
Canidae $0.059


Now for the weight vs volume test. 

I realize there will be some variation cup to cup. So the way I did it is this. I weighed out seven individual cups, Then averaged the weights of those seven cups. Then I weighed the same seven cups together and divided by seven to make sure my average was close.

Then I repeated the process with three cup increments. Again I compared my averages between the individual cup weights on the 7 cup and 3 cup averaging. 

These are the average per cup weights I came up with for each

Iams 4.5 OZ per cup
Purina One 3.85 OZ per cup
Pedigree 3.5 OZ per cup
Alpo 3.75 OZ per cup
Canidae 4 OZ per cup. 

Next I looked at the feeding tables of all the brands. I chose to use the 50-75 pound adult dog size on the chart for the pricing comparison. Mainly because they all listed that size slot and also because it is a very common size dog. So it shows a good average dog cost.

The reccommended daily feeding for a 50-75 pound dog on each brand is as follows.

Iams 2.75 - 3.5 cups
Purina One 2.5 -3.33 cups
Pedigree 4 -5.33 cups
Alpo 3.5 - 4.75 cups
Canidae 2 -3 cups

I then took the reccomended feeding for the size dog of each brand and averaged it right down the middle. In other words if the chart said 2-3 cups, I used 2.5 cups for my average. I did this on every brand. 

Iams 3.125 cups
Purina One 2.9 cups
Pedigree 4.66 cups
Alpo 4.125 cups
Canidae 2.5 cups

Then I took the price per ounce times the number of ounces in a cup times the averaged reccomended daily feeding. This will give a good idea of the daily cost to feed the hypothetical 50 -75 pound dog on a daily basis with each brand of dog food. 


Iams $0.061 x 4.5 x 3.125 = $0.8578 (daily food cost)

Purina One $0.0533 x 3.85 x 2.9 = $0.595 (daily food cost)

Pedigree $0.03 x 3.5 x 4.66 = $0.489 (daily food cost)

Alpo $0.023 x3.75 x 4.125 = $0.3557 (daily food cost)

Canidae $0.059 x 4 x 2.5 = $.59 (daily food cost) 

This tells me that feeding a high end high quality brand like Canidae costs less than feeding a so called premium brand like Iams. About the same as a top shelf grocery store brand like Purina One and just a little bit more than a couple of garbage brands. Especially the Alpo. That stuff is REAL garbage. 

I plan on adding Science Diet and Eukanuba to the mix as well as well as Innova. I want to see where it all shakes out. 

I will add this... I have two dogs in the same 50-75 pound size range that I chose for the test. Merlin at about 53 pounds. Buc at about 77 pounds. Both eat Canidae. Both dogs are active and well excercised. NEITHER gets the amount of food on Canidae's feeding chart. If I fed them by the chart they would get FAT. 
Buc at 77 pounds gets two cups and Merlin at 53 pounds gets 1.66 cups per day. 

Merlin's will probably drop to about 1.33 in a few months. He is about done growing but has a tad of finishing off to do as far as muscle. I do not want to cut him short. Once his transition from puppy to dog is over and his metabolism stabilizes, I think I will find he needs less, I have already cut him back some from his puppy rations. Another third of a cup is likely. Bandit was a bit smaller than Merlin. Weighing about 47 pounds at proper weight. He ate an even cup a day of Canidae. 

Right now it costs me this to feed both of my dogs on Canidae. 

$0.059 x 4 x 3.66 = $0.8637 (daily feeding cost - two dogs) 
_

Round two.......


_Okay more brands....
Today I got bags of....

Eukanuba Medium Breed

Ole Roy Complete Nutrition

Nutro Natural Lamb and Rice


Using the same methodology as before I came up with the following.


Cost per ounce

Ole Roy $0.02
Nutro $0.06
Eukanuba $0.07


Again using the same methodology I came up with the average weight per one level cup by volume.

Ole Roy 4 oz
Eukanuba 4.1 oz
Nutro 4.1 oz


On feeding amounts I had to vary a little. The Nutro had a feeding schedule in the 50-75 pound range but had schedules for moderate energy and high energy dogs. So with that I took the bottom number for the moderate energy and the top number for the high energy and split it down the middle. The Eukanuba only had a feeding schedule for up to a 50 pound dog. It gave it in exact cups. So I took the feeding amount for the 25 pound dog and added it to the fifty pound then used the 50 pound feeding for the bottom number and my added number for the top number then averaged it down the middle. 

The Ole Roy had a feeding schedule for a 50-100 pound dog. So I used the bottom half of that range then split those numbers in half. 

These are the feeding amounts per day I came up with for the hypothetical 50-75 pound dog.

Ole Roy 4.81 cups per day
Eukanuba 2.625 cups per day
Nutro 3.79 cups per day. 


So here is how these foods break down cost wise per day for the 50-75 pound dog.

Ole Roy $0.02 x 4 x 4.81 = $0.3848 (daily food cost)
Eukanuba $0.07 x 4.1 x 2.625 = $0.753 (daily food cost)
Nutro $0.06 x 4.1 x 3.79 = $0.932 (daily feeding cost)

The Ole Roy food is cheap to feed. But it is pretty nasty stuff. Mostly corn

Eukanuba is better but still has a lot of corn. It costs more to feed than much better brands. 

Nutro is not a bad food (at least the formula I bought) In fact I probably would not think it was bad at all if it did not have beet pulp in it. The fact that Nutro brags or touts beet pulp as a good ingredient bothers me some. They specifically mention it. But the Nutro is the most expensive food, I have checked yet. So it is a so so food at a very expensive price. 



_


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## briteday (Feb 10, 2007)

Boy, I thought I was into running the numbers! You're impressive!!!! Nice work, good research technique! The only other thing I would have added was figuring out the price per kcal since some owners look at the number of calories their dog needs and base the daily ration on calories. Hmmmmmmmm......


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## JohnnyBandit (Sep 19, 2008)

briteday said:


> Boy, I thought I was into running the numbers! You're impressive!!!! Nice work, good research technique! The only other thing I would have added was figuring out the price per kcal since some owners look at the number of calories their dog needs and base the daily ration on calories. Hmmmmmmmm......


Well my wife thinks I am a bit off..... I guess if I was wealthy, I would be considered eccentric. But I am not, so I guess I am just plain ole weird.

She usually doesn't ask when she sees me doing stuff like this. She usually just walks through the kitchen and says.... "you're going to clean that up when you are done aren't you?"


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## DOGOWNERS (Sep 29, 2008)

Interesting study! Thanks a lot


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## Shaina (Oct 28, 2007)

JohnnyBandit said:


> I guess if I was wealthy, I would be considered eccentric. But I am not, so I guess I am just plain ole weird.


This cracked me up, haha

Well done on the research.


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## Falkon (Aug 21, 2008)

I am impressed. This is real consumer research right here. Heck, get it peer reviewed and you could stick this right in a journal. Honestly, I would see if you could get this published by one of the dog magazines.

I didn't know Eukanuba was so expensive per feeding. I'm going to have to let a friend know of your findings.


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## JohnnyBandit (Sep 19, 2008)

I am currently working out some costs on feeding raw...... 

I don't think it is nearly as expensive as some people perceive it to be. 

I have a rough figure of about $1.80 per dog per day on average for my dogs. Some days cost more, some less. 

I am buying all first quality products and not skimping corners. In fact some think I am over doing it with un neccessary ingredients. But my dogs look GOOD and they like it. But my formulas are evolving and I don't have a lot of freezer space. When I get a chest freezer and can purchase things in large quantities, the cost will drop a fair amount.


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## NickW (Sep 30, 2008)

Have you seen this site? They have already run all the numbers...

www.dogfoodanalysis.com/


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## RawFedDogs (Jun 22, 2008)

NickW said:


> Have you seen this site? They have already run all the numbers...


It's a different set of numbers measuring different things.


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## SunsetSam (Jul 31, 2008)

My dh and I did this this weekend measuring Chicken Soup for the Dog Lover's Soul or Blue Buffalo Chicken and Rice. I was surprised to find that going by calories, Blue Buffalo was cheaper to feed than CS due to the high number of calories per cup. Still mega-expensive to feed 2 large dogs with, but less than I thought.


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## Falkon (Aug 21, 2008)

This should be stickied.


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