Food scores are based on ingredient quality and safety. For more information, view our evaluation criteria.
Smallbatch Lightly Dog Food is rated 9.5 overall for the 3 foods in the line. Because the food is cooked, it loses an ingredient safety point for moderate processing. It’s worth noting that the “Lightly Cooked” description is accurate: these foods are cooked sous vide in a water bath at just 150F for 5 minutes. Although cooking usually causes some nutrient loss, it’s likely that this method means the loss of nutrients in this food is low.
The foods are very low in carbohydrate, averaging 3.7% on a dry matter basis (meaning with the moisture removed, for comparison with dry foods).
Smallbatch’s food is made by third party manufacturers . The company is on-site at the raw and lightly cooked production facilities.
The Lightly Cooked line has 3 meat-based formulas that include bone and organ meats combined with 13% to 18% organic produce. Proteins offered are Chicken, Beef, Turkey, in slider format with 2 lb and 5 lb bag sizes.
The foods all have a lower percentage of fat than protein, which is desirable in a raw food.
There are no added vitamins or minerals (except vitamin E as a preservative). This suggests indicates higher quality ingredients because the nutrients comes from whole foods..
Smallbatch does source quality ingredients, but the label does use unsubstantiated descriptions like “humanely raised and harvested” to describe their animal protein sources. These are purely marketing terms that have no legal meaning under pet food regulatory standards. The products in this line contain added salmon oil, so it’s advisable to store the food in a sealed container to minimize oxidation. The company doesn’t state whether the oil is from farmed or wild-caught salmon. Wild-caught fish is more nutritious than farmed and has a better fatty acid balance.
The food does not provide the omega-6:omega-3 ratio, which is a concern since AAFCO allows a very inflammatory ratio of 30:1.
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