SavourLife Dog Food Review

WebsiteSavourLife
Available fromPet Circle  

The best thing I can say about SavourLife dog food is it’s a good option for many of us. It won’t break the bank like some of those fancy top end foods, and it’s much better than common choices like Supercoat which are packed with not-overly-nutritious cereals.

SavourLife are also Australian, which will likely win hearts.

I have to say the SavourLife Grain Free range is my preference (and the most expensive), but there’s also a slightly cheaper Ancient Grains range, and an Essentials range with bigger bags for those on a tight budget or have to feed larger dogs. I’ll cover all in this review.

At the time of updating this review the food has been around for nearly 8 years, and feedback has been really good over that time. That says something about the quality of the brand.

SavourLife dog food review

What the marketing says

The SavourLife moto is “Dog Food that Makes a Difference”. What they mean by that is 50% of their profits are donated to dog rescue organisations Australia-wide. On their website they list those organisations by state if you want to check it out.

SavourLife Dog Food Review

As for the SavourLife products themselves, they state they’re gluten free, natural, holistic, with natural superfood inclusions. But of course they only tell you the good stuff, so lets take a look at the ingredients and I’ll tell you the other stuff you’ll like to know.

What the labelling really says

The Grain Free Australian Chicken formula is 28% protein and 18% fat. This is very good for a dry dog food, and means there’s less carbs – carbs aren’t great for dogs (they’re meat eaters, right?).

The Ancient Grains and Essentials range aren’t to the same standard, being 23% protein/14% fat and 23% protein/13% fat respectively. That’s the real truth about dog foods, as the more you pay the more appropriate they are for your dog. On that point alone you’ll see why I favour the grain free formulas.

Focusing on the grain free chicken I see the top five ingredients as the majority of the formula as a whole. Chicken Meal, Field Peas, and Tapioca are significant, then we have Poultry Oil (for the fat content) and Potato.

The downside of this is we have 2 animal ingredients to 3 non-animal ingredients, which is what sets SavourLife apart from those on the best rated list. But there’s no reason you can’t feed SavourLife combined with one of those foods for a bit of variety.

They’re not bad ingredients, and I could nit pick and say sweet potato is a better choice than potato, but the biggest improvement would be a greater emphasis on meats.

The 28% protein will be a combination of meat and peas, whereas some more expensive brands have most of the protein from meat – more digestible for your dog.

SavourLife Dog Food Review

The Ancient Grains range looks to favour meat/sorghum/brown rice/peas as main ingredients, which I still see as an improvement over Supercoat and similar brands. The downside of the Essentials range is wheat – one of the cheapest grains which I find commonly fed to dogs with itchy skin and dull coat – but it’s combined with oats (good choice of grain) and chickpeas (should be beneficial in moderation).

There’s a few nice smaller inclusions, such as linseed (flaxseed) in the grain free range, which is a good source of omega fatty acids for skin, coat, and heart health. You’ll also find some fruits and veggies, also in the Ancient Grains formulas. There’s little to rave about in the Essentials range, but at least they’re all preserved naturally with rosemary extract and green tea.

I’d love to know which range suits you and your budget, so feel free to add a comment below. It helps me make recommendations.

Should you feed SavourLife to your dog?

Based on good feedback from other dog owners, and a range of dog foods to cater for various budgets, SavourLife could be a good mid-range choice.

You’ll also be buying from an Australian company, and given they donate a share of the profits to dog rescues you’ll also be supporting Australian dogs.

Where to buy SavourLife dog food

SavourLife Grain Free Chicken:

SavourLife Ancient Grains Chicken:

SavourLife Essentials Chicken:

SavourLife Ingredients

SavourLife Grain Free Australian Chicken ingredients:

Chicken Meal, Field Peas, Tapioca, Poultry Oil, Potato, Natural Flavouring, Beet Pulp, Fish Oil, Vitamins & Minerals & Amino Acids, Linseed, Salt, Yucca Schidigera Extract, Chicory Root (Natural Prebiotic), Tomato Pomace, Sweet Potato, Kelp, Carrot, Broccoli, Blueberries, Glucosamine, Natural Antioxidants (including Rosemary Extract and Green Tea)

SavourLife Ancient Grains Australian Chicken ingredients:

Chicken Meal, Sorghum, Brown Rice, Field Peas, Poultry Oil, Natural Flavouring, Alfalfa, Fish Oil, Vitamins & Minerals & Amino Acids, Linseed, Salt, Yucca Schidigera Extract, Chicory Root (Natural Prebiotic), Tomato Pomace, Kelp, Carrot, Broccoli, Blueberries, Glucosamine, Natural Antioxidants (including Rosemary Extract and Green Tea).

SavourLife Essentials Australian Chicken ingredients:

Chicken Meal, Oats, Chickpeas, Wheat, Poultry Oil, Sorghum, Natural Flavouring, Rice, Alfalfa, Vitamins & Minerals & Amino Acids, Sea Salt, Fish Oil, Seasonable Vegetable Mix, Yucca Schidigera Extract, Chicory Root (Natural Prebiotic), Natural Antioxidants (including Rosemary Extract and Green Tea).

SavourLife Guaranteed Analysis

Guaranteed analysis of Savour Life Grain Free Australian Chicken dog food:

Protein(min) 28%*
Fat(min) 18%*
Crude Fibre(max) 5%
Carbohydrates *Listed as (min) 33%. Estimated 36%.*
* May be estimated. Read how to calculate carbohydrates in a pet food.

At the time of updating the SavourLife dog food review, Ancient Grains Chicken is 23% protein/14% fat/estimated 45% carbs, and Essentials Chicken is 23% protein/13% fat/estimated 46% carbs.

Have you fed SavourLife dog food or had experience with the company?

Calling Aussie pet lovers – join the mailing list!

8 Total Score
SavourLife Dog Food Review

PROS
  • A good reputation and consumer feedback
  • Three ranges of formulas for different budgets
  • Probably a better option than what you're currently feeding your dog

38 Comments
  1. Grain free diets have been linked to dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM). I would always opt for grain containing foods. And dogs are omnivores, so vegetables and grains are part of their normal diet. They are not obligate carnivores like cats.

    • Reply
      Pet Food Reviews (Australia) July 12, 2023 at 4:40 pm

      Hi Kait, in fact the Canine DCM investigation was subsequently dropped by the FDA with no conclusive proof. Unfortunately the viral nature of social media continues to promote false facts.

      Whether you feed a dog food made of grains or grain free, your real concern should be the amount of animal ingredients (or lack of).

      Dogs are far more similar to obligate carnivore cats than they are to us as omnivores, which should tell you something. Classing them as omnivores allows us (or lets say the pet food industry) to nutritionally abuse them with high-carbohydrate processed products which make multiple billions of dollars a year.

      You can read more about the classification of dogs as carnivores or omnivores here.

  2. I have continued to feed my large boxer cross rescue puppy on SavourLife as this was what he was fed when we adopted him ( I did change to large breed puppy as I was given an adult formula). I am not convinced this is the best choice as his poo is often very very soft. We adopted him 2 months ago and have been feeding SavourLife since then.
    Hoping for further recommendations.

  3. Reply
    Michele MacDonald May 26, 2017 at 2:15 pm

    it’s a shame they endorse/use shark fin cartilage,so shameful they should know better.

    • To be fair it’s not this food but one of their treat products that contains the shark cartilage, and they claim that they’re using excess product from existing gummy shark processing. Which seems plausible considering that there’s a whole lot of cartilage in the average gummy shark – the fins are negligible by comparison and presumably not even part of this equation as they would likely be flogged off as a premium product to other buyers, being so notoriously desirable.

  4. How in the world did this get a four?
    Do you take into account things like manufacturing standards?
    Doesn’t even have pro biotics in it.
    Not to mention this food is absolutely carb central.

    • This food has 53~57% meat which is more than most foods, and the carbs are actually lower than average. I don’t believe many manufacturers boast quality standard certificates or photographs of their facilities?

      • I do not understand this 53% protein they write on the front of a kibble bag, when you read the side or back of kibble packet or their online site it says 28% protein, they’re just writing what the protein would be if it were raw/wet tin food like Applaws does & now Black Hawk G/F is doing, isn’t this a marketing ploy to attract customers???

        • Fresh meat isn’t 100% protein. Its not even 50% protein.

          28% is on a dry matter basis so it isn’t comparable to normal meat.

          28% is the guaranteed minimum but it is usually higher than the minimum in pet foods 🙂

        • I just took a closer look at a bag of the kangaroo formula, and the 57% number on the front is referring to “Kangaroo”. In other words you could say that the bag contents are 57% kangaroo meal and 43% other stuff, while the analysis of the whole lot breaks down to 28% protein etc.

          So yes, it does smell like a marketing ploy to be creative with numbers and generally baffle the consumer 🙁

        • I know this is an old post, but in case someone else comes browsing through here….. It’s NOT a marketing ploy, it’s basic biology and nutrition, I really don’t know how anyone can be confused by this. If I gave you 100g of meat you would be getting around 26g protein. Meat is not composed of 100% protein and I don’t know where people get the idea that it does. Thats biology, meat is composed of protein, fats, water and minerals. Their claims are factual, correct and in no way misleading.

        • I used the word “ploy” because they have chosen to describe the contents a little differently to others in the bold copy on the front panel, and in doing so introduce a new level of indirection as opposed to competitors who (for the moment anyway) generally describe their product first and foremost in terms of x% protein, x% fat. And I’m fairly sure that the kangaroo content being 57% when placed alongside competing products quoting far lower fat/protein percentages on their front panel, was a wee bit more than a happy marketing accident.

        • What if it went the other way, what if a manufacturer was adding supplemental protein into a product, which then actually contained very little meat. Wouldn’t you want to know? As far as I’m concerned, the meat content is a very valid product feature/claim and should be labelled prominently. You can’t say “well other makers label their products differently, therefore this is deceptive”. The same thing happens in human foods too, by the way.

        • I suspected a little yesterday, but now it seems almost certain that you’re misunderstanding the meaning and usage of the word “ploy” here, deception doesn’t come into it. Sadly I don’t have the skills or patience to help with english comprehension issues.

        • You’re the one claiming you are confused by the totally readable and COMPREHENSIBLE packaging. You obviously feel you have been misled by some sort of “ploy”. You claim that this “ploy” has “baffled” you, so if you are now not claiming that this was deceptive, then maybe you need to learn how to express yourself better. Long story short, you have read the packet incorrectly, which is your fault, not the products.

        • Man give it a rest, it’s clear your ego is currently out of control and frankly I don’t care, I’m keeping my pride in check you do the same with ego please, we’re all nice people here, want to meet the bad guys instead? go visit dog food advisor.

        • why is dogfoodadvisor “the bad guys”? I thought they were legit…. Have I been misled?

        • Lol sometimes I post funny things, I had forgotten all about this, but truthfully I’m over dog food advisor, Aimee and Anon lead the charge on every new post, sometimes me and Susan want to help and they just bulldoze us, saying we’re homeopathic shills.

          To be honest we’re entitled to our own opinions on how to feed dogs correctly. Anon doesn’t really believe in anything, all that new research and findings are all just fake to her and that’s too bad, because there’s a wide spread movement happening to change pet food laws and hopefully get rid of bad pet food brands.

          I think as of currently Rodney has 500 million followers and her Skeptvet she’s in love with only has a few thousand, you can see that he’s not someone a lot of people would trust wit their pets, personally I wouldn’t either, I’ve only researched online and I know heaps more then he does, but then I’m a part of that movement hoping for change.

          The ratings however are not bad, but because of how food is rated based on ingredients and nutritional analysis it can be very biased.
          Of course America has 400 different pet foods? so doing a full out investigation on every food simply isn’t going to happen, that falls on the pet parent.

          Oh yeah and forgot that Anon had Mike remove any and all mentions of clean label until they can prove that what they say is true, because apparently the tests they did weren’t real, yeah sure lol, I’m not a fan of clean label as of late, they promote some stuff I’m not a fan of, but hey everyone’s got there issues, maybe one day they will find out that oh I don’t know all meat has bacteria?

        • Wow, what part of anything I said was somehow egotistical?

        • Go away Troll, no one here wants to deal with you on a perfect day like today.

        • Ha oh dear, who is trolling who? If you don’t have anything to add to the conversation maybe you should butt out? I’d shudder to think what the people at dog food advisor must be like if you represent the “nice people”.

        • Came back to read what you wrote once again blocking you though everyone should do the same have a nice day!

        • Bye!

        • Lol Alan your other side is showing haha.

        • I’ll have to tell you the ‘wrong again monkeyboy!’ story one day over a beer :p

        • Oooh sounds like fun can’t wait!

      • Canidae.. WellPet… Hills and even Royal canin show or advertise their standard level of quality and most have photos of their immaculate facilities. Although I hate the stuff in hills and royal canin they have pretty nice facilities.
        I get you’re only reviewing ingredients but quality control is so super important too.
        I just don’t see how this could get a 4 when something like… Holistic Select has the exact score and is a far far better quality and better feature food?

    • Is there an issue with the manufacturing standards at SavourLife?

      • My rule of thumb… if the company doesn’t boast their quality standard certificates then they generally have none. If they also don’t include images of where the food is actually made and proof of what measures are in place to ensure its quality then what does that say about the food.
        Honestly having seen where some of Aus premium and grocery level food is made it was enough to make me question almost all Australian pet food companies.

  5. I saw Savourlife the other day, My Pet Warehouse online store has Savourlife on special for
    2.5kg bag -$21.74, a 10kg bag-$67.49…. it just has Chicken meal as the only protein, I like a kibble to have at least 2-4 proteins as 1st 2nd, 3rd & 4th ingredients, it would be better if the sweet potatoes were 4th ingredient where the potatoes is instead of being 13th ingredient…..
    The Kangaroo formula is the only formula where the fat is 14% min the rest of the Savourlife formula’s are all 18% min fat, way too high for my IBD boy, I like kibbles that have formula’s with different fat % & protein % so if your dog has a health problem you have a better choice, I don’t like the poultry oil why not write chicken fat, is there a difference? also fish oil in a kibble goes rancid very quickly, as soon as kibble bag is opened the air gets to the fish oil & it goes rancid a lot of kibble companies have changed the fish oil & added either coconut oil or canola oil instead, the omega 3 will drop in this kibble, maybe that’s why they have added linseed straight after the fish oil as back up…
    How does Savourlife pick which rescue group to donate too, we have a lot of rescue groups in Australia, how does it work? also where is this kibble made?

    • I don’t know where their complete list of rescue groups ultimately comes from – presumably some sort of registration process just to get on to the list. I’m involved with one of these groups, we’ve just been through the pain of one round of the donation distribution process which went something like this:

      SavourLife offer something like 10 prizes ranging from $3k downward, and people are invited to vote for their favourite rescue group. The group with the most votes gets $3k, 2nd $2750, 3rd $1750 etc. Which is disappointing in a sense because it’s not merit based, but rather a popularity contest much like the TV Week Logie awards. Not that SavourLife could ever be expected to audit every organisation and weed out the dodgy or hopelessly inefficient ones, but I do wonder if there’s a better way than what essentially became a battle of facebook audiences and rescue groups trying to post the cutest puppy picture.

      Props to SavourLife though – it’s an incredibly generous thing they’re doing here.

      • Really, I see rescue groups posting links & begging people to vote for their rescue group, there’s one rescue group I always vote for & share their link & that’s “Golden Oldies” I see & read Gina Struggling with all these old dogs, owners just dump at pound, she has big vet bills cause most of these old dogs need vet care, people will take the little dogs but the old bigger dogs Gina can’t rehome & Staffys very sad… Meals For Mutts donates food…MFM “Bag for Bowl” I don’t know how it works..

        • Sadly I don’t see a rescue group by that name in the list. You might want to contact this person and encourage her to get in touch with SavourLife to see if her outfit qualifies for future consideration.

  6. Oh you changed the rating? Wasn’t it 3 and a half? It’s better as a 4 tbh as its really pretty good for it’s price range, compared to the brands you know I hate :p.

    • I gave it the benefit of the doubt and upped it to 4. I also dropped Black Hawk to 3.5 due to ongoing reports of digestive upset.

      • Blackhawk is bringing out lovely new bags and they said no changes to ingredients but actually there is, 3 meat sources in the first 3 ingredients for the lamb and rice one and they’ve removed the rye, the likely digestive upset source to be honest that and maybe even emu oil, Andzia reacted to something in the Blackhawk and the only thing I can pinpoint is the emu oil as she’s had everything else.

  7. I always love seeing companies that make treats suddenly making actual food or just new companies in general it’s so much fun to read the new ingredients look at the star ratings even if the happiness is short lived with bad ingredients or something :p

    I’ve never much been a fan of the ingredients savour chooses to promote in their foods, it’s nice that they donate but if they had better ingredients I could bet they would make even more money to donate much more but ah well their loss. Maybe they will re think it in the future.

    Onto the actual review.
    1. It’s chicken “meal” always better then just chicken itself that Purina loves to boast about being number 1 lol.
    2. Tapioca and digests from a company that I don’t really know and whose treats I would never buy, means this food will never be tried by me too bad.
    3. Always with the vitamins, minerals and amino acids without including what sorts of those items are added, I would hope it’s on the guaranteed analysis, because I think I remember a few brands were it wasn’t listed anywhere to find, if you wanted it you needed to send a message. <— annoying.

    Other then that the rest looks fine and although glucosamine is a nice addition the amount is usually 300mg/kg when it's at that point in the list and so your pet will benefit from it but not very much, big dogs require around 1500mg per meal for joint health, so adding a powder extra is a much better idea, because as you can see your pet gets 300mg for every kilo of food they eat which is awful.
    To be honest the best supplement for arthritis or anything similar (I have osteo) from personal experience is Turmeric Latte for me and Green Lipped Mussel for Rusty.

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