Leaps & Bounds Cat Food Review

WebsiteLeaps & Bounds (PetBarn)
Country of originAustralia
Available fromPetbarn

Leaps & Bounds is the home brand of Petbarn (and City Farmers). They don’t tell you it’s a home brand on the packaging, which is something we call a phantom brand. Many people would be deterred from buying a home brand if it actually looked like a home brand, so they now tend to be packaged like “premium” brands. Most home brands in Australia are made by the same manufacturer.

Let’s take a look at the Chicken & Rosemary formula. We’ll start with an excerpt from the Leaps & Bounds website which tells you what they want you to know, not what they don’t. Please note this is common across most pet foods, not just Leaps & Bounds.

Leaps & Bounds Marketing

Doesn’t that look tasty and wholesome?

If we correlate the above pictures with the real ingredients we see the main ingredient is meat meal (poultry, beef and/or lamb), a rendered product comprising of carcass, sinewy tissue, and some muscle meat from a variety of animals, not just the succulent chicken we see pictured.

Leaps & Bounds Cat Food Review

The second ingredient isn’t just rice, but a combination of rice and wheat. Don’t you think it’s strange they only make you aware of the rice, and not the wheat? Wheat is a problematic grain in terms of allergies and itchy skin but is a cheap way of bulking up a pet food. Cats are obligate carnivores so don’t need either grain anyway, and given the carb % is higher than the protein % that means your cat is getting more carbs from grains than protein from meat.

The protein is ramped up with soya bean, which is a cheaper substitute to real meat protein. We also find cereal protein from corn, another stigmatised ingredient which they neglect to mention on the packaging and marketing. Seeing cereal bran is also ominous, and can be problematic for your pet carnivore to digest.

Leaps & Bounds Cat Food Review

To offer some small positives about the food, it’s nice to see the inclusion of salmon oil and linseed for heart health, skin, and coat. It’s also good to see natural antioxidants and preservatives.

It’s not an optimal diet for a carnivorous animal, but not many dry cat foods are.

Where to buy Leaps & Bounds

You can buy Leaps & Bounds directly from Petbarn (or click and collect).

Ingredients

Meat meal (poultry, beef and/or lamb), wholegrain cereals (rice and wheat), vegetable protein (soya bean), tallow and/or vegetable oil, cereal protein (corn), cereal bran, chicken digest (gravy), beet pulp (prebiotic dietary fibre), sweet potato, salt, choline chloride, minerals (including calcium, phosphorus, potassium, magnesium, iron, zinc, manganese, iodine, selenium), linseed, chicory root inulin (prebiotic), amino acids (taurine, dl-methionine), salmon oil (containing omega 3 fatty acids), yucca extract, vitamins (including A, C, D3, E, K, B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B9, B12), natural antioxidants, kelp meal, apple, herbs (thyme, rosemary, parsley), blueberry and cranberry extract.

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6 Total Score
Mediocre

PROS
  • Meat as the first ingredient
CONS
  • Mostly cereal grains and soya bean

10 Comments
  1. My cats won’t eat this food. Bought a bug bag of dry food. Very disappointing!

  2. Absolutely disgusting my cats had the worst reaction! Diarrhea everywhere and vomiting. This stuff should be banned!!

  3. Raw food for cats Chicken and Turkey & Kangaroo my adult Bengal cat wouldn’t touch it unfortunately my dog did and he vomited half a dozen times. Waste of money!

  4. Leaps and Bounds wet cat food (and dog food) contains Carrageenan (confirmed by company rep.), this has shown to cause inflammation and Irritable bowels in animals and humans in many tests. This is hidden behind the generic label thickener and gelling agent.

    My cat got diarrhea from this product days on end, I finally managed to put two and two together and put it down to Carrageenan. Carrageenan should be banned. Australia is soft on pet food labelling and there are loop holes that allow its use.

    My honest advice is to avoid this product.

  5. I bought selection of wet food boxes for my 2 babes, also believing it to be a quality, Australian product. It’s not.
    Made in Thailand, and the so-called ‘real meat’ is heavily processed manufactured meat.
    1 cat nibbles at it, the other won’t touch it at all.
    Very disappointed.

  6. I just bought the whole gravy collection for my adult cat in can format from the petbarn website because it was aussie made and on sale. I thought why not. It look healthy on the website because it says that its 90% meat, 5% carbohydrates, 5% vitamins, minerals & oils. After reading this, I’m now a bit worried giving it to my cat. At least it’s got to be better than giving her the Whiskers brand. Fingers crossed. Do you have any suggestions for aussie made and owned wet cat food?

  7. This product is terrible ( the wet cat food) 2 out of my 4 cats vomited after eating. Threw the product out immediately… absolutely disgusting.

  8. Can you review the leaps and bounds wet food please?

    • Reply
      Pet Food Reviews (Australia) August 30, 2022 at 4:13 pm

      Hi Garry, as much as I’d like to review wet foods I don’t see this happening in the near future. Generally the dry food review can be used as a guide, as quite often the wet foods are of a similar standard to the dry foods. i.e. if a dry food is highly rated then it’s likely the wet foods are good too!

  9. Leaps and bounds recently came out with a raw option for cats, could you please review them?

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