Best Budget Dog Food in Australia
Ok folks, after 13 years of Pet Food Reviews I’ve decided to bite the bullet and offer you a guide to the best budget dog foods in Australia.
I’ve avoided it until now because most budget dog foods aren’t very good at all, so it’s hard for me to recommend them.
But I should be more helpful, right!?
Let’s go about this keeping in mind budget tends to mean lower quality, and there’s no legal requirements in Australia for a dog food to meet even the bare minimum in quality.
With that in mind, I’ll make recommendations in ascending order of price (so the top recommendations will be cheapest, and the further you get down the list the better the food should be for your dog).
If you’re on a budget and money is tight, don’t consider a budget kibble the only option.
Our dogs thrive off nutrition from animal foods (meat offcuts, organs, and breed-appropriate raw meaty bones), as well as eggs, some healthy veggies, or the odd scrap of sweet potato and other healthy carbs.
Sometimes giving your dog suitable table scraps can greatly improve the nutrition in their diet, so this is worth thinking about, right?
The benefit to you, is most of these foods can be bought on a budget – often cheaper than budget wet dog foods!
Best budget dog food
We’re covering dry dog food here (kibble aka “biscuits”), as most of the time this is the cheapest way to feed a dog.
I’ll skirt over wet foods later, but they tend to cost more, don’t go far, and can be money poorly spent.
Let’s start with a popular brand most Aussies have heard of…
Purina Supercoat
Keeping in mind Supercoat is the cheapest recommendation on this list, I must state the truth – the bag may say “ADULT With Chicken” (or whatever meat recipe), but all formulas are more grain (fillers) than meat.
However, Supercoat is undeniably a popular budget dog food, and Purina tend to have good manufacturing and quality control. Apart from the ingredients lacking in meat, it’s a safe bet compared to other budget Australian brands (I say this based on consumer reports and feedback).
Another benefit of Supercoat is the big 18kg bag sizes – very cost effective if you have a big dog to feed, and more so if you take advantage of the further 10% auto delivery option at a retailer like Pet Circle.
You can offset the amount of carbs from grains in Supercoat by feeding offcuts and healthy table scraps as well, but if you don’t know much about nutritional balance (most dog foods are “complete and balanced”) then keep offcuts and table scraps to around 20% of your dog’s diet.
Optimum
Optimum isn’t much more expensive than Supercoat, and is definitely a step up.
Even though I’m not a fan of Mars Petcare brands of dog food, they tend to be better than Purina (which is a Nestle brand). Whereas I may not see the ingredients as optimal for your dog, it has to be said the manufacturing facilities and quality control are good.
I could recommend the Mars brand Pedigree, but I really don’t want to (it’s similar to Supercoat), and Advance as the next step up will cost you more than the best recommended dog food on this page (and I don’t think the formula is as good).
I feel Optimum is a better option for your dog than Supercoat simply because it has higher protein (although from both meat and corn). It won’t cost you that much more either, especially with the big 18kg bags.
Hypro Premium
Hypro Premium is a fair bit more expensive than Supercoat, but the formula is leaps and bounds better.
Lot’s of dog foods in Australia are “private label”, which means they’re manufactured by one company who take a cut, then the private label company who take a cut, then the retailer who take another cut. Hypro is actually a manufacturer, which means their dog food can be sold a little cheaper by skipping the “middle man”.
(Petzyo on the best rated list are similar, but they sell direct to you which saves the big cut a retailer would take).
20kg bags are the cheapest option per kilo, and it’s fairly comparable to Black Hawk (recommended next) as a dog food I like to use as a solid recommendation for most Aussie dog owners.
Black Hawk
I realise Black Hawk is a big jump in price to Supercoat listed first, but the meat protein, fat, and better balance of nutritious ingredients in Black Hawk means you’re getting much more for your money in terms of health and appropriateness for your dog.
To flip it the other way – Supercoat may be cheaper, but most of what you’re buying is pointless and I would say unhealthy for your dog.
Another benefit of Black Hawk dog food is it’s made in a brand new $80+ million Australian manufacturing facility, and the improvement in quality has been noticeable.
If you can afford Black Hawk, it should pay you back in better health for your dog. Question is, does it blow the budget? (Let me know in the comments)
What to look for in a budget dog food?
When looking at budget dry dog foods there are a few things to look out for.
Firstly, make sure the food is labelled complete and balanced. Most dry dog foods are, but in Australia few aren’t. This means they don’t cater for the bare minimum nutrients your dog needs to survive.
Adult dog foods can be cheaper than puppy formulas, because they have less nutrition. Never feed an Adult recipe to a puppy or senior dog.
Avoid artificial colourings (often listed as “food colourings” or just “colours”). Good Os was one such example, but lots of cheap supermarket brands use artificial colourings. They’re unhealthy, your dog doesn’t care about them, and they’re often used to make otherwise brown nuggets look pretty to you.
Protein and fat are way more beneficial to your dog than carbohydrates which are mostly redundant, often unhealthy filler. Compare the protein and fat percentages of budget dog foods as higher tends to be better, although reading the ingredients will help you determine if it’s protein and fat from animal (good), legumes like peas (mediocre), or grains like corn (budget protein).
Buying larger bags often works out cheaper per kilo. It won’t work for small or toy breed dogs as you really want to get through a bag in 4 weeks or less (dog food spoils, even with artificial preservatives or antioxidants as another thing to watch out for in budget dog foods).
Repeat delivery options offered by retailers like Pet Circle will also help keep costs down, and hopefully allow you to buy a slightly better dog food.
Why are dry dog foods better budget options than budget wet dog foods?
Wet (or canned) dog foods are more expensive, and budget wet foods don’t tend to be very good.
Dry dog foods cater for tighter budgets, and offer you a “go to” dog food with a long shelf-life which allows you to buy “in bulk” with larger bags.
Given how poor some budget wet foods are, you’re probably better off feeding your dog real meats, organs, and breed-appropriate raw meaty bones as well – these are often just as cheap as budget wet dog foods which don’t tend to be very good at all (sorry My Dog, this includes you).
Cheap wet dog foods tend to be mostly moisture – so you’re often paying for “water sufficient for processing” – which won’t fill your dog up, and will cost you a lot more. They also, often, have questionable nutritional content, grains, or cheap cuts.
Fair enough, feed some wet dog food as part of your dog’s diet, but try taking a step up in quality with a better brand as a nutritious treat or special meal.
