Nutripe Dog Food Review

David D'Angelo 7 0

8.6

Some say Nutripe stinks, but don’t worry – your dog won’t mind.

The reason for the smell is the wonderfully nutritious tripe (hence the name Nutripe) – something which is very nutritious and good for your dog.

On the Nutripe website you’ll hear the receipes can help with gut function, joint health, derma health, heart health, stool odour control (that made me smile!), and also an immune system booster.

That’s all well and good, but what is the why behind those marketing claims, and is Nutripe a good option for our dogs?

Let’s take a look at what’s on offer int the Nutripe range, which I’m sure could be a great option if PETstock is your store of choice.

What’s on offer in the Nutripe range?

For both dogs and cats, in Australia the Nutripe range includes “Krunch” oven-baked (a bit like kibble, but cooked at lower temps), wet food, and also freeze-dried – probably your best option for nutrition as well as shelf life, but will also cost your more.

There are air-dried treats available which look decent enough. They contain vegetable glycerin as a humectant (to make the treats more chewy), but that’s my only small gripe, and they’re miles better than all the crappy wheat and corn based treats most Aussies buy for their pets.

All foods in the range seem to be “scientist formulated”, and I did some digging to find out Dr Nick Costa is involved – a professor from Murdoch University who’s worked with brands like Cherish and Advanced.

Nutripe Krunch Oven-baked

I’ll start with the oven-baked foods as these will appeal to most. In Australia kibble (or “biscuits” if you will) remain the go-to choice for most pet owners, so an oven-baked alternative is your next step up. Lower temps should equal better nutrition (although there’s an interesting gotcha in the ingredients, so read on!).

If we take a look at the ingredients of Nutripe Krunch Oven-Baked New Zealand Hormone-Free Chicken & Beef with Green Tripe (what a mouthful that is!), we find a lot of good, but also some “dubious”.

The first (and most significant) ingredients are Chicken, Chicken Meal, Fava Beans, Pea, Beef, and Natural Flavour.

If we consider those as a whole, the chicken in the recipe probably isn’t that much more than the fava beans and peas, so we can assume it doesn’t contain the high meat content of some of the dog foods on the best rated list. It’s not bad though, and there are definitely far worse options.

36% (min) protein is very good, and with a respectable 17% fat makes this a low-carb dry dog food – that’s good news, as your dog doesn’t really need carbs.

Interestingly, the food may tout “oven-baked”, but chicken meal and I expect natural flavour are products of rendering, which means they were previously cooked at high temperatures anyway. Meat meals come as a dried powder, and natural flavour is likely the fatty broth created from the same process.

Or in short – those ingredients won’t benefit from the lower temperatures of being oven-cooked, and the meal is actually twice cooked!

However, the other ingredients will benefit from being oven-cooked, including the chicken, legumes, beef, and the next ingredient in the list which is green lamb tripe.

Tripe is stomach lining, but is packed with nutrition which is great for our dogs. It’s the main selling point of Nutripe, but it’s a good one – tripe is rich in digestive enzymes and probiotics, which means it will greatly support your dog’s gut health and their ability to digest the food they eat.

There’s good stuff to say about the minor ingredients as well, even though we can expect these to be fairly small amounts.

For heart health, skin and coat, we find a combination of flaxseed, fish oil, and sunflower oil for omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids. We also find blueberry, carrot, kiwifruit, apple, goat milk powder (protein!), green-lipped mussel powder (good for joints!), seaweed meal, and more – all these round off the Nutripe Krunch range with a range of nutrients.

It’s these minor inclusions which account for most of the marketing claims we covered above. Lots of dog foods these days cater for such nutritional needs, but not all do.

To offer a quick summary, Nutripe Krunch is definitely a decent dry dog food.

Despite the ominous use of meat meals which won’t benefit from being oven-baked, it’s still a better option than many other kibbles on the shelves, and not a bad choice indeed.

However, the freeze dried range is better, so let’s take a look…

Nutripe Wildcuts Freeze Dried

I find the Nutripe Freeze Dried range of dog food very hard to fault.

I think many will be put off the price, but as far as nutrition and appropriateness for your dog it has to be said the ingredients are excellent.

Freeze dried is a method of removing moisture from a food and leaving all the important stuff with nutrients intact. There aren’t any fillers either, so no redundant ingredients your dog doesn’t need.

In fact, the ingredients speak for themselves (these are for the Beef with Green-Tripe recipe):

Beef, Beef Heart, Beef Liver, Beef Lung, Green Lamb Tripe, Flaxseed, Green-lipped Mussels, Fish Oil, Goat Milk Powder, Cranberry, Carrot, Pumpkin, Manuka Honey, Choline Chloride, Sodium Chloride, Taurine, Calcium Carbonate, Mixed Tocopherols, Potassium Chloride, Iron, Vitamin E, Zinc, Vitamin B3, Copper, Vitamin B1, Vitamin A, Selenium, Vitamin B2, Vitamin B5, Manganese, Vitamin D3, Vitamin B6, Biotin, Vitamin B12, Vitamin K1, Iodine, Folic Acid.

Fantastic nutrition for your dog, even if you feed this alongside a kibble or as a “topper” (where you sprinkle some on top of their regular food).

The only downside is the bag sizes are small. This is fine if you have a smaller breed, but if you have a larger breed you may find the fantastic Frontier Pets Australian brand of freeze dried dog food suits you better.

Nutripe Wet Food

Wet food tends to be better than the dry food of the same brand, and the same is the case for Nutripe.

Just like the freeze-dried food, the wet range of Nutripe is full of meats, organs, and other ingredients which are truly beneficial for your dog. You may be surprised how many wet dog foods are inappropriate for the species, which may cost less than Nutripe… but so does Maccas compared to a balanced healthy meat-based meal.

It’s interesting to see Unagi & Green Tripe recipe – probably a good option if your dog is intolerant of common meat proteins or grains. Unagi (to save you looking it up) is the Japanese word for water eel.

Again, the ingredients speak for themselves – Unagi, Water sufficient for processing, Green Venison Tripe, Salmon, Potato Starch, Lamb Lung, Lamb Liver, Lamb Kidney, Ovine Plasma

Let me just cover the last one – Ovine Plasma – as another very novel ingredient in a dog food. It may sound a bit gross, but it’s the nutrient-rich part of sheep blood, and great for your dog’s gut health, skin, coat, and immunity.

My only gripe with wet foods (and most commercial pet foods in general), is the soft texture will do nothing for the dental health of your dog. The simple answer to that – give them something to chew on, such as raw meaty bones, or tough dried meaty chews.

Where to buy Nutripe

Nutripe is available to buy at various retailers in Australia, but most notably PETstock.

Ingredients

The ingredients of Nutripe Krunch dry dog food (New Zealand Hormone-Free Chicken & Beef with Green Tripe):

Chicken, Chicken Meal, Fava Beans, Pea, Beef, Natural Flavour, Green Lamb Tripe, Flaxseed, Beef Meal, Fish Oil, Sunflower Oil, Choline Chloride, Sodium Chloride, Blueberry, Carrot, Kiwifruit, Apple, Goat Milk Powder, Green-lipped Mussel Powder, Seaweed Meal, Fenugreek Seeds, Pomegranate Juice, Quinoa, Chia Seeds, Taurine, Calcium Carbonate, Mixed Tocopherols, Potassium Chloride, Iron, Vitamin E, Zinc, Vitamin B3, Copper, Vitamin B1, Vitamin A, Selenium, Vitamin B2, Vitamin B5, Manganese, Vitamin D, Vitamin B6, Biotin, Vitamin B12, Vitamin K1, Iodine, Folic Acid.

Guaranteed Analysis

The guaranteed analysis of Nutripe Krunch dry dog food (New Zealand Hormone-Free Chicken & Beef with Green Tripe):