Purina Generally Uses Healthy Ingredients — But There’s Plenty of Room for Improvement
You’ll find a few recipes in their cupboard that use only high-quality ingredients, with no questionable foods or additives.
For the most part, however, each food has room to improve. The vast majority use cheap fillers like wheat and corn, and many use at least some sort of animal by-product.
That being said, real meat is usually the first ingredient, so at least the rest of the food is built upon that healthy bedrock.
Purina Has Placed an Increasing Emphasis on Nutrition
For a long time, Purina was as laser-focused on price as Pedigree continues to be, and their food was as inexpensive as their bigger rival’s.
However, as the pet market (especially in the United States) began to drift towards healthier, natural foods, Purina began to shift their focus as well. They began to introduce specialized lines that were more expensive but used higher-quality foods as well.
Their ONE line was the first large-scale premium pet food ever made, and while it can’t quite rival some of the human-grade foods made today, it nevertheless represented a seismic shift in the pet food industry. ONE is still one of their top-performing brands.
Despite their continuing emphasis on high-quality, nutritious foods, the company still makes many affordable options that use cheap fillers and animal by-products. Recently, though, they’ve been trying to offer foods that use healthy ingredients at prices that rival those of their competitor.
Pedigree is Still the Biggest Petcare Company in the World
Operated out of England, the company sells more pet food than any other organization in the world.
They held a stranglehold on the global market for some time and then strengthened their grasp on the U.S. market by acquiring Los Angeles-based Kal Kan in 1968.
In addition to their flagship Pedigree line, the company also owns brands like Sheba, Eukanuba, Cesar, IAMS, and Nutro, among others.
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Mash-up: Blue Buffalo Freedom vs Pedigree
You won’t find two more massive titans in the pet food world, as Pedigree and Purina are the biggest and second-biggest pet food brands in the world, respectively. You’ll find their brands anywhere pet food is sold — but does the fact that they’re ubiquitous mean that they’re good?
We took a deep dive into both brands to determine a winner so that you can give your dog food you can trust. And while there was one brand we prefer over the other, that doesn’t mean that we didn’t uncover a few surprises along the way (more on that in a minute).