In this article
Review Summary
We give Dave’s Pet Food cat food a rating of 4.6 out of 5 stars.
There’s been a big push lately away from cat foods made with cheap ingredients and far too many fillers. Many cat owners are searching for healthier alternatives for their beloved pets. Some people even serve meals they prepare themselves. Naturally, this would take more time, effort, and money than most of us could afford to spend on our felines.
This leaves a glaring space in the market for affordable and convenient cat food that provides healthy ingredients and complete nutrition formulated with felines in mind rather than just profits. Dave’s Pet Food produces formulas with the nutrition that cats need, which are affordable and much cheaper than many premium brands.
Dave’s Cat Food is crafted with top-notch premium ingredients minus the outrageous price tag. The company keeps advertising costs low, allowing them to pass the savings on to the consumer.
At a Glance: The Best Dave’s Cat Food Recipes:
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Our Favorite
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Dave’s Pet Food Tuna & Chicken Dinner in Gravy |
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Dave’s Pet Food Saucey Tuna Dinner in Gravy |
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Dave’s Pet Food Restricted Diet Magnesium & Phosphorus Grain-Free Pork |
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Dave’s Pet Food Gobbleicious Gourmet Dinner |
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Dave’s Pet Food Cat’s Meow 95% Turkey & Turkey Liver |
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Dave’s Cat Food Reviewed
Dave’s Pet Food is a unique brand. Several companies fill the same market niche Dave’s occupies with their affordable yet healthy pet foods made with top-tier ingredients. However, Dave’s is sold at more than 2,000 stores across the US, with an online presence to top it off.
Who Makes Dave’s Cat Food & Where Is It Produced?
Dave’s Cat Food is made by Dave’s Soda and Pet City, owned by Dave Ratner. Dave started a small soda store when he was young but noticed a need for high-quality yet affordable pet foods. So, he started selling pet foods and sodas from his shop, Dave’s Soda and Pet City, which continued to grow. Eventually, Dave could afford to produce food under his own brand, and Dave’s Cat Food was born.
Most pet foods from Dave’s are produced in the US or Canada. However, cat food flavors that include tuna are made in Thailand in dolphin-free manufacturing facilities.
Which Types of Cats is Dave’s Best Suited for?
Dave’s is a health-conscious pet food brand that produces quality pet foods ideal for just about any pet. Their cat foods are made with feline health as the primary focus. They have grain-free options for cats with sensitive stomachs or digestive issues. There’s even a line of Dave’s for those on a restricted diet, and you can find an applicable blend for any cat in the Dave’s lineup.
Which Types of Cats Might Do Better With a Different Brand?
The only cats that might benefit more from another brand are ones that need prescribed foods that a vet recommends. In such cases, the vet will provide information on which food and brand should be used. For all other healthy cats, Dave’s cat food offers excellent nutrition at a reasonable price.
Discussion of The Primary Ingredients (Good & Bad)
You can learn a lot about the quality of a pet food formula by taking a close look at the ingredients used to craft it. In this case, we’ll look at the ingredients in Dave’s Pet Food Naturally Healthy Grain-Free Tuna & Chicken Dinner in Gravy Canned Cat Food. It’s one of the best-selling cat foods offered by Dave’s, so it should provide a good idea of the quality you can expect.
Ingredients lists are in order from the most prevalent ingredient to the least. So, the ingredients at the top of the list are found in the largest quantities within the recipe, and the ingredients at the end of the list are less abundant.
Rather than look at every ingredient used in this cat food, we will look at the top five primary ingredients that make up the bulk of this particular blend.
Tuna
Tuna is a high-protein food that cats love. Often, it’s recommended that you don’t feed tuna to your cat since they can quickly become addicted. However, in this case, it’s mixed with enough other ingredients to avoid tuna addiction. Tuna contains plenty of health-boosting nutrients for your cat.
It’s high in protein and low in fat. Furthermore, tuna provides your cat with EPA, DHA, and omega fatty acids, which are all essential for your feline. We always like to see a whole-food, animal-based protein source listed as the first ingredient, and Dave’s meets that expectation with this blend.
Tuna Broth
This blend is 82% moisture. That’s a bit higher than some canned cat foods, but most wet cat foods are 70% moisture or more. Often, you’ll see that the moisture comes straight from water.
In Dave’s formula, we can see the moisture is coming from tuna broth instead. This is desirable since the broth has nutrients similar to tuna that are great for your cat. Plus, the tuna broth provides a lot of flavor to entice your cat.
Chicken
Cats are obligate carnivores, and they need to eat meat to be healthy. Chicken is another high-quality protein source for cats. Along with tuna, it provides a mix of amino acids and necessary nutrients. Notice that it’s listed as chicken rather than a cheaper, lower-quality substitute like a chicken by-product.
Natural Flavor
Cats are notoriously picky eaters. To combat this, you need to provide tasty foods that your cat will like. Helping in that department is the inclusion of natural flavor, meant to enhance the taste of the other ingredients in this blend so that it’s more desirable for your feline.
Ground Tapioca
Tapioca is a common ingredient in grain-free cat foods, but it’s not the same as the dessert tapioca. Tapioca in your cat’s food doesn’t contain added sugar to make it sweet. It also contains little to no protein, and it’s not a potential food allergen, making it completely safe for cats, even those that commonly experience adverse reactions to foods.
Granted, tapioca is still a carbohydrate that cats don’t need to consume in high amounts. Luckily, as the fifth ingredient on a rather short ingredients list, there’s probably not much ground tapioca in this food.
Animal-Based Ingredients
Animal-based ingredients provide the nutrients that are essential to a cat’s health, such as taurine, vitamin A, and vitamin E. In this cat food blend, we can see that three of the five main ingredients are animal-based, offering a diverse blend of protein in ample dosage to keep your cat healthy and happy.
Cats Need Flavor Too
It’s easy to feel concerned about added flavorings, even natural flavors. But remember, your cat needs to enjoy the food too! Otherwise, they will probably ignore whatever you try to feed them. Natural flavors are added to make the food more appealing to your pet. Plus, natural flavors aren’t unhealthy. Usually, they are a nutritional yeast additive that enhances the flavors of the meat in the recipe.
Low Carbohydrate Formula
Despite the ground tapioca in the top five ingredients, this cat food blend is still very low in carbohydrates overall. It contains only 2.48% carbohydrates. This is ideal for cats since they’re not great at digesting carbohydrates.
Many competing foods utilize far more carbohydrate fillers because they’re cheap and add weight to the food.
Tuna Blends Are Produced in Thailand
Most of Dave’s pet foods are produced in America. However, the tuna blend is not. They’re made in dolphin-free factories in Thailand. While this doesn’t necessarily indicate anything about the food, it is something that many people aren’t thrilled about, preferring to purchase products produced in the USA.
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A Quick Look at Dave’s Cat Food
- Priced more affordably than other healthy brands
- Made with quality animal-based ingredients
- Options available for restricted diets
- Many blends smell pretty poorly
- Picky eaters tend not to like Dave’s
Recall History
Though Dave’s Pet Food has been in business for over 20 years, we only found evidence of one recall. Luckily for cat owners, this recall was in one of Dave’s dog food blends. The recall was voluntary and involved just a single lot of canned dog food for possibly containing elevated levels of a beef thyroid hormone. Dave’s Pet Foods has never had a recall on the cat food that we could find.
Reviews of the 3 Best Dave’s Cat Food Recipes
1. Dave’s Pet Food Naturally Healthy Grain-Free Tuna & Chicken Dinner in Gravy
If you’re looking for a healthy alternative to cheap commercial pet foods produced with loads of fillers but don’t want to spend a fortune, the Naturally Healthy Grain-Free Tuna & Chicken Dinner in Gravy from Dave’s is a great choice. It’s less expensive than other pet foods made with similarly premium ingredients. Loaded with protein, this food utilizes quality animal-based ingredients like tuna and chicken to give your cat the necessary nutrients.
Since most wet pet food is made up mostly of moisture, you’re paying for a lot of water. However, with this blend, the moisture comes from tuna broth instead, so it’s still packed with vital nutrients. The recipe is grain-free, so it’s great for cats with sensitive stomachs or food allergies. However, it is worth noting that it is produced in Thailand in a dolphin-safe facility.
- Not as pricey as other premium cat foods
- Made with top-quality ingredients
- High in protein
- Uses tuna broth for moisture
- Grain-free for sensitive stomachs and those with food allergies
- Produced in Thailand
2. Dave’s Pet Food Saucey Tuna Dinner in Gravy Grain-Free Wet Cat Food
Cats are known for being picky about what they’ll eat. This Saucey Tuna Dinner in Gravy Grain-Free Wet Cat Food is made with a tasty sauce. Unfortunately, this pouched food is far pricier than other Dave’s cat foods that come in a can, though the serving size is tiny.
Like other Dave’s cat foods that contain tuna, this one is produced and packed in Thailand. Luckily, it’s made entirely with dolphin-safe tuna. The recipe is grain-free and perfect for pets with stomach sensitivities. It’s a good food altogether, but we’d pick a more affordable Dave’s product instead of this one.
- Made with dolphin-safe tuna
- Packaged in a safe, BPA-free pouch
- Grain-free recipe
- Small serving size
- Far pricier than canned formulas
- Produced in Thailand
3. Dave’s Pet Food Restricted Diet Magnesium & Phosphorus Grain-Free Pork Recipe
When your cat needs a restricted diet to manage health conditions, this blend from Dave’s is a great choice. It has controlled levels of magnesium and phosphorus, though it still contains all the flavors of other Dave’s cat foods, so your cat will still be interested in eating it.
For healthy cats, we don’t recommend this product. Cats needing help with their urinary health will find it to be a perfect fit. Because it’s grain-free and contains no carrageenan, cats with sensitivities are unlikely to be bothered by this food. It’s incredibly expensive, so you should only choose this food if your cat really needs the nutrition it offers.
- Great for cats on a restricted diet
- Low in magnesium and phosphorous
- Great for cats with sensitivities
- Made with no grain or carrageenan
- Prohibitively pricey
- Not the best choice for healthy cats
What Other Users Are Saying
There used to be a time when healthy options like Dave’s Pet Food were challenging to get a hold of. But today, pet foods like this are easily available online through major retailers such as Amazon and Chewy. Thankfully, this allows us to bring you opinions other than our own. In this section, we will quote real-world reviews so you can hear what other people thought of Dave’s cat food after feeding it to their felines.
The following quotes come directly from reviews on Chewy.com.
Positive Chewy Reviews
“The cats love it, including the very fussy one. It appears to be a very good quality cat food, with good ingredients.”
“I ordered this food, and I liked the ingredients. All three of my cats liked it. It is not often that I find a food all three enjoy! One is extremely picky, one is picky, and one will eat anything. And all three loved this food.”
“My four-year-old tabby developed food sensitivity and had trouble keeping meals down (the vet ruled out other issues). Dave’s is one of the few foods that don’t contain any of the items that set her off. I love that the protein is animal-based and low fat.”
Negative Chewy Reviews
“I thought this food would be healthier for my 3 boys. Too bad they won’t eat it. Cats are jerks!!!”
“We are pretty disappointed in this offering. It has got to be the worst-smelling cat food I’ve smelled to date…and I have been working in veterinary medicine for 10 years. The one cat won’t go near it.”
If you’d like to read more Dave’s Pet Food reviews on Chewy, follow this link.
If you’d like to see what Amazon customers think about Dave’s Pet Food, click here.
Conclusion
Dave’s Pet Food is a company with small-business ideals operating on a larger scale than most similar companies. It’s produced mainly in the US and Canada and is committed to creating quality dog and cat foods with pet health as the number one priority. Dave’s cat foods are made with top-notch ingredients that you can feel good about feeding your feline.
However, you won’t find the same astronomical price tags attached to Dave’s cat food that you’ll see on other premium brands. Instead, Dave’s is driven to provide these health-focused pet foods at a reasonable price, making it possible for everyone to offer their pets the nutrition they need to stay healthy and happy throughout their lives.
