The market survey · v1 · preliminary · 25 May 2026
We audited the
Ferraris.
There’s no point comparing a Civic to a Ferrari. So we took the pet food brands India’s own vets and review sites rank highest, and put each one through four structural gates derived from what cats and dogs actually evolved to eat. Then we published every score and every reason.
Four categories — two sealed by a structural mechanism, one excluded for shipping without a premix, one an open frontier. We audit the strongest brand in each, not every rung. Across every brand audited, 0 cleared all four gates — the only 1111 on the board is our own. A living document; brands are invited to engage by publishing their data.
The four gates
AND-logic · a brand passes only if all four read 1 · any 0 invalidates the ancestral-adequacy claim
Publishes quantitative guaranteed analysis + quantitative premix (every vitamin & trace mineral) + top-10 ingredients in order.
DROPPED FROM RACE — non-disclosure. Cannot be judged on substance; invited to publish so the audit can re-open.
≥ 80% (dog) / ≥ 95% (cat) of NRC kcal delivered from animal-origin food — meat, organ, fish, egg, dairy, animal fat, insect.
Plant/cereal matrix carries too much of the energy. Structural for extruded kibble (needs a starch matrix to form a pellet).
Every NRC 2006 vitamin, mineral & essential amino acid delivered at ≥ 100% of the adult-maintenance floor per 1,000 kcal (incl. Ca:P, Zn:Cu).
A declared nutrient or ratio falls below the NRC floor. Evaluated on published premix only.
Protein-to-fat kcal ratio within 0.9–1.1 : 1 on a Modified-Atwater basis (the ancestral band — wolf 1.2:1 Bosch 2015, cat 1.13:1 Plantinga 2011).
Fat-padded for palatability below 0.9:1. Near-universal in commercial formats; drives repeat purchase.
Dispositions: 1111 = PASSES AUDIT · a 0 in G1/G2/G3 = FAIL ON AUDIT (passed declaration, failed on substance) · G0 = 0 → DROPPED FROM RACE (non-disclosure; invited to publish).
The verdict, by category
We audit the ceiling of each category. If the best brand can’t clear a gate, the category is settled — no need to grade every rung.
Ceiling audited: Orijen Original (1010)
Hot extrusion needs a starch matrix to form a shelf-stable pellet, capping animal-origin energy at ~70–75% (fails G1) and tuning fat for palatability (fails G3). Orijen — the most meat-led extruded kibble made — is the ceiling, and it fails. Nothing below the ceiling can clear what the ceiling cannot.
Royal Canin · Hill's · Farmina N&D · Pedigree · Drools · Whiskas · IAMS · SmartHeart · Smylo · Purepet · Choostix · HUFT
12 brands · we audit the ceiling, not every rung.
Ceiling audited: Sheba Premium Pâté (1110)
The wet format clears the extrusion hurdle — Sheba reaches ~95% animal-origin energy and publishes its premix — but the recipe is fat-tuned for palatability, so P:F lands at 0.64:1, far below the 0.9–1.1 ancestral band (fails G3). The category optimises for the bowl licked clean, not the ancestral ratio.
Sheba · Royal Canin Wet · Whiskas Wet · Pedigree Wet · Drools Wet · Hill's Wet
Highest scorer in the survey (1110) — and still fails.
Ceiling audited: Henlo (0000)
Fresh/baked is the one format that could clear all four gates — no extrusion ceiling, meat-led, ancestral P:F achievable. The blocker is disclosure: Henlo (Godrej-backed, baked) is meat-led but declares its premix only as “essential vitamins & minerals”, so it can't be judged (G0). A brand here that publishes a quantitative premix is the only structural threat to a clean board — so this is the bucket we keep auditing.
Henlo (audited) · Pet Apothecary · Doggie Dabbas · BarkBerry fresh · FreshForPaws · Wagr · Pawfectly · Cretomil
Contenders pending — publish your premix and the audit opens on merit.
Single-protein dehydrated/raw meat is 80%+ animal-origin by energy (clears G1) but ships without a micronutrient premix, so it cannot meet the NRC floor (fails G2) — and several are treats, not complete diets. Listed for completeness, excluded from the race.
BarkBerry Raw · Crackle · Goofy Tails · Lickerish
No complete-diet claim; not a contender.
The evidence — every brand we audited
Peer-rank order · audited on each brand’s own published label data, 25 May 2026
Cold-press block (no extrusion, no Maillard loss) + a fresh basket that is ~99% animal-origin energy for cats and >90% for dogs; quantitative premix published; protein-led basket holds P:F in the ancestral band. Self-audit 1111 — flagged for independent external verification.
India's #1 vet-recommended kibble. Top 9 ingredients carry 6 plants (maize ×3, wheat, rice, beet pulp). P:F 0.71:1. Publishes its premix — and fails on its own data.
“Cereals, vegetable protein extracts, derivatives of vegetable origin, various sugars” in the top ingredients. P:F 0.68:1; premix only partial.
Godrej-backed, baked (not extruded), meat-led top ingredients — but premix is declared only as “essential vitamins & minerals” with no quantitative GA. Undeclarable. Invited to publish.
Top 5 = poultry protein + rice + wheat + maize + vegetable protein isolate. Cereal-led; same extrusion ceiling.
GA published (28/15/5/10) but premix only “essential vitamins and minerals”. The most-sold mass brand — dropped at the declaration gate. Invited to publish.
Globally transparent (publishes premix) — and still fails: whole-grain matrix carries the energy (G1), fat-padded P:F (G3).
The ceiling of extruded kibble: 13 animal ingredients before the first legume. Animal kcal ~70–75% (legume bulk is calorie-dense); P:F 0.87:1 — misses the band by 0.03. If the best dry can't clear it, none can.
Highest scorer audited (1110). Wet form clears the extrusion hurdle — animal kcal ~95%, premix published, NRC met. Fails only on P:F 0.64:1: fat-palatability, not chemistry.
Growlrr’s row is a self-audit, flagged for independent external verification. Every other row is audited from the brand’s own published label.
Three ways to fail — none of them brand-specific
The eight failures collapse into three structural mechanisms
RC Maxi Dry · RC Indoor Cat · Hill's Science Diet · Orijen Original
Hot extrusion at 150–180 °C needs a starch/plant-protein matrix to form a shelf-stable pellet, so animal-origin energy is capped at ~70–75% (G1), and the formula is fat-padded for palatability (G3).
Sheba Premium Pâté
The wet format removes the extrusion ceiling — animal-origin energy clears the line — but the recipe is still tuned fat-heavy for palatability, so P:F sits below the ancestral band (G3).
Henlo · Pedigree PRO
India has no AAFCO/FEDIAF equivalent, so brands declare premix as “essential vitamins and minerals” with no quantitative breakdown. They cannot be judged on substance (G0). Not a brand fault — a regulatory vacuum.
And the metric that actually matters
₹ per gram of bioavailable animal protein — what reaches the bowl after the damage
A brand can fail every gate and still look cheap on the bag. The honest number is cost per gram of protein the animal actually absorbs. On that metric, the cold-press-block + fresh architecture beats the premium-dry tier at the low end of its band and runs several times under premium wet:
Dog · 20 kg
Cat · 4 kg
What the data says
- 01We don't grade every brand one by one — we audit the ceiling of each category. Two categories are sealed by a structural mechanism (dry kibble by extrusion, premium wet by fat-palatability), one is excluded for shipping without a premix (dehydrated), and one is the open frontier (D2C fresh). The only 1111 on the board is our own — flagged for external verification.
- 02Failures cluster into three structural mechanisms — extrusion chemistry, fat-palatability, and the Indian regulatory vacuum — none of them brand-specific. Auditing more brands inside a sealed category only re-confirms its mechanism.
- 03Orijen Original is the ceiling of extruded kibble, missing the ancestral P:F band by 0.03. If the most meat-led dry food on earth can't clear it, no extruded kibble can — so the whole dry category is settled by one audit, not twelve.
- 04Orijen Original is the ceiling of extruded kibble, missing the ancestral P:F band by 0.03. If the most meat-led dry food on earth can't clear it, no extruded kibble can.
- 05This is an invitation, not an indictment. Every brand dropped at the declaration gate has a public path back in: publish the quantitative premix and guaranteed analysis, and the audit re-opens on merit.
An invitation, not an indictment
Every brand dropped at the declaration gate has a public path back in: publish your quantitative premix and guaranteed analysis, and the audit re-opens on merit. We will score it the same way we scored our own — and if you clear all four gates, we’ll say so here. The point was never to win an argument. It was to put the data where pet parents can see it.
Methodology & inventory
How the brand universe was built and audited
Brand universe compiled from six Indian peer-ranking sources (Supertails, Zoomies, Heads Up For Tails, Bajaj pet-insurance blog, Pets of Paradise, The Doggos). Audits run top-down by peer rank; each ingredient list and guaranteed analysis cross-verified across ≥ 2 independent sources. Animal-origin energy estimated from ingredient order + composition heuristics where exact percentages aren’t published (flagged as estimates). Ancestral anchors: Bosch et al. 2015 (wolf, Br J Nutr), Plantinga et al. 2011 (feral cat, Br J Nutr), Hewson-Hughes et al. 2013. Floors: NRC 2006. Audited on published label data only — label fidelity, not the physical product. Re-audited annually or on confirmed reformulation.
We audit our own food the same way — and publish it.
See exactly what a complete fresh bowl costs and delivers for your pet’s weight — the numbers behind the only row that scored 1111.