Kibble Shelf

Fresh Dog Food Subscription Comparison: Ingredients, Format, Price by Brand

Banjo's kidney panel came back with numbers just outside normal range in the fall of 2022, and the vet's advice was blunt: cut the sodium, watch the protein source, and get him off dry kibble if I could manage it. I couldn't manage much else that week, but I could open a spreadsheet. Four years and five different fresh-food brands later, that spreadsheet is still open, and this table is basically what's left after I stopped trusting brand marketing pages and started trusting my own tab of weights, dates, and receipts.

I've paid real money for The Farmer's Dog, Ollie, Nom Nom, Spot & Tango, and JustFoodForDogs, sometimes two at once so I could compare Banjo's stool quality against Pickle's in the same week. Spot & Tango's UnKibble line is the one that didn't stick around here. It's a genuinely clever format, dehydrated and shelf-stable, and Pickle ate it fine, but I never felt confident I was getting enough moisture into a dog with an early kidney flag by rehydrating a bag at the counter every morning. I moved Banjo back to a fully fresh-frozen recipe within six weeks and left the UnKibble bag half-full in the pantry for embarrassingly long before I admitted I wasn't going back to it.

The price column below is messier than a typical comparison chart, and I decided to leave it messy rather than fake a clean apples-to-apples number. Some brands quote a daily rate, some quote by the week, and Maev and Evermore sell by the bag or the case without publishing a day rate anywhere I could find. When I ran JustFoodForDogs for both dogs at once, the bill for Banjo alone landed closer to twenty dollars a day once he was eating a full Fresh Frozen plan at his weight, nowhere near the bargain number a lot of comparison pages still print. That gap is exactly what convinced me to stop copying other people's tables and start pricing things myself.

Fresh Dog Food Brand Comparison Table

The table below compares ten major fresh dog food subscriptions. I priced each one in whatever unit the brand or reviewer actually publishes, because forcing every brand into a fake "per day" number was going to be more misleading than just showing the real math per source.

Brand Preparation Format Primary Protein Options Ingredient Standards Estimated Price (as reported by source)
The Farmer's Dog Fresh-frozen, pre-portioned pouches Turkey, Beef, Pork, Chicken Human-grade, AAFCO compliant (Source) $2.31 – $8.67/day for dogs up to 60 lb (Source)
Nom Nom Fresh-frozen, single-serve packs Beef, Chicken, Pork, Turkey Board-certified veterinary nutritionist formulated (Source) Starts around $2.40/day, increases with dog size (Source)
Ollie Fresh-frozen or Gently Baked Beef, Chicken, Turkey, Lamb, Pork Human-grade, USDA Process Verified, no fillers or artificial flavorings/preservatives (Source) $4 – $8/day (Source)
Pet Plate Fresh-frozen, resealable tubs Beef, Chicken, Turkey, Lamb, Pork, Venison Human-grade, cooked in USDA kitchens (Source) $1.57 – $3.79/day (Source)
JustFoodForDogs Fresh-frozen or Pantry Fresh (Shelf-stable) Beef, Chicken, Fish, Lamb, Turkey, Venison Human-grade, backed by a decade of university-led research (Source) $6 – $7/day for a 15 lb dog, $20+/day for a 70 lb dog on Fresh Frozen (Source)
Spot & Tango Fresh-frozen or "UnKibble" (Dehydrated) Turkey, Beef, Lamb Free of artificial preservatives, ingredients, or colors (Source) $1.15 – $3.39 per meal for fresh food, 8–50 lb dog (Source)
We Feed Raw Raw-frozen patties Beef, Chicken, Turkey, Lamb, Duck, Venison USDA meats, HPP (cold pasteurization) used to eliminate harmful bacteria (Source) ~$40 – $65/week for a 25–50 lb dog (Source)
Darwin's Natural Pet Products Raw-frozen Beef, Chicken, Turkey, Lamb, Duck Human-grade, USDA-quality ingredients, minimally processed (Source) $35 – $65/week for a 40 lb dog (Source)
Maev Raw, flash-frozen (serve from freezer) Beef, Chicken Whole food, clinically-proven targeted formulas (Source) $67 – $71 per 5 lb bag (Source)
Evermore Fresh-frozen, sous-vide style Chicken, Beef, Lamb, Turkey Human-grade, sous-vide cooked in a USDA/FDA-inspected kitchen (Source) $104 (8-lb Small Case) – $384 (32-lb 2X Large Case) (Source)

If you want the underlying numbers, I keep a running log of weight (same kitchen scale, same time each week), energy level, and stool grade for both dogs across every switch. I don't publish the raw sheet, but every change on this page reflects what's actually in it as of this update, not just what happened to be on a brand's landing page in July 2026.

Definitions of Preparation Formats

Fresh-Frozen
Ingredients are cooked at low temperatures to preserve nutrients, then portioned and frozen. These typically require refrigeration or freezer storage and thawing before serving.
Raw-Frozen
Uncooked meat, organs, and bone, often mixed with vegetables and supplements. These are frozen to maintain freshness and often undergo High-Pressure Processing (HPP) to eliminate pathogens.
Gently Baked / Dehydrated
Ingredients are cooked at low heat or air-dried to remove moisture while remaining minimally processed compared to traditional kibble. These formats are often shelf-stable until opened.
Shelf-Stable (Pantry Fresh)
Fresh ingredients cooked in a way (often using tetra-packs or retort pouches) that allows for storage at room temperature without preservatives until the seal is broken.

Ingredient and Nutritional Standards

Most fresh dog food subscription services adhere to specific regulatory and quality standards to differentiate their products from conventional pet food:

Last verified: 2026-07-17

Sources

Related Articles