Food scores are based on ingredient quality and safety. For more information, view our evaluation criteria.
Purpose Pet Food is a brand that was founded to focus on nutrition as well as ethical values. They state that they only work with suppliers who have a humanely raised certification label or have extensive humanely raised practices. The company makes freeze-dried dog and cat foods and treats, sold direct to consumer on their website. They’re headquartered in Madison, New Jersey.
Is purpose A GOOD DOG FOOD?
With a score of 8.8, Purpose freeze-dried dog foods are considered a low risk dog food, with no points lost for light processing. Freeze dried raw foods don’t have heat applied during processing, so the nutrients in the raw ingredients are preserved.
The recipes contain 95% meat (or fish)/5% produce and the produce is all organic. The company uses ingredients like grass fed (but not stated to be grass finished) beef, free range poultry, and cage-free rabbits. Salmon in the fish recipe is described as wild-caught, but it’s not clear if the whitefish or herring oil ingredienta are farmed or wild caught. Wild caught fish is more nutritious and has a better fatty acid balance.
The company’s claim of quality ingredients means it’s disappointing to see a wide range of added vitamins and minerals.These additives can indicate lower quality ingredients that need to be fortified to meet nutritional standards. It’s preferable to have vitamins come from whole food sources so they include the full spectrum of cofactors, which makes them safe and bioavailable.
None of the recipes lose any points for ingredient safety. But when it comes to ingredient quality, two of the recipes (Duck and Rabbit) lose a point for a relatively high (for a freeze dried raw food) carbohydrate level, calculated as 18% and 16% respectively. Overall carbs across all foods average just under 12%, with protein at nearly 48%. Fat is lower than protein which is desirable in a freeze dried raw food.
It’s worth mentioning that the food contains added sodium selenite as a source of selenium. Dogs need selenium, and it’s usually added in very small amounts. However some research suggests that sodium selenite may be associated with potential toxicity, so selenium yeast is the preferred form of this mineral.
The company does use a number of unsubstantiated marketing terms in its website food descriptions, such as cage-free, humanely raised, farm-raised, that suggest ingredients are better quality. These are purely marketing terms that have no legal meaning under pet food regulatory standards.
Lastly, the ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids isn’t disclosed. This is a concern because AAFCO allows a very inflammatory level of 30:1.
Click on the individual foods below to read the scores for each recipe
Purpose Pet Food has no product recalls to date.
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