Hotdogs or Cheap Pet Food – One is Four Times as Expensive

I made another trip to Walmart´s pet food aisle and purchased a couple of cans of dog food and cat food – the cheapest they had. No, I did not feed this stuff to my own pets; it was used as a visual aid in pictures – that is all. To be honest it disgusted me horribly to smell and look at this food. The liquid of the food was sticky and slimy. The ´meat´ seemed to ooze liquid. When I emptied the cans on the plate, the liquid kept growing. Within a minute or two the liquid was spilling over the sides onto my counter. I poured some of it off and almost like magic it started oozing liquid again. It was creepy. And then there was the smell. It didn´t smell rancid – but it smelled really, really bad. After I was done with pictures I dumped the entire mess into the disposal and had to pour some bleach down the drain to kill the smell. This is what many people feed their dog or cat every day.

If that description doesn´t motivate you to buy better quality pet food, here´s more for you to ´chew on´.

The cost of the canned Dog Food was $.57 for a 5.5 oz can

Deduct a Walmart 10% markup on the can (less $.06)

Deduct a 10% cost for packaging (less $.06)

Deduct Manufacturer 10% markup (less $.06)

Now we are left with $0.39 – an estimated cost of the ingredients in the 5.5 ounce can. This breaks down to $0.07 per ounce – estimated cost of pet food ingredients. Gotta repeat this one – allowing for a conservative retailer markup, conservative cost of packaging, conservative manufacturer markup, this can of dog food uses ingredients that only cost $0.07 per ounce. Imagine the quality of nutrition provided to the dog when ALL ingredients to make the food cost only $0.07 per ounce.

It was about the same for the cat food. The cost of the Walmart cheap canned cat food was $0.43 for a 5.5 ounce can. Less a 10% Walmart markup, less a 10% packaging cost, less a 10% Manufacturer markup, this can of cat food has an estimated cost of ingredients of $0.31 for the can or $0.06 per ounce.

Since pet foods are packaged to imply they are just like ´people´ food, I decided to compare cost per ounce with a couple of human foods. One is a frozen TV dinner - Beef Pot Roast. That´s pretty similar to what is touted about a canned pet food – meat and vegetables. Yet using the same markup and packaging cost deductions – the human food breaks down to $0.43 per ounce. Seven times the cost per ounce of the canned pet food. So then I compared hotdogs. After the same markups were deducted – the hotdogs ended up costing $0.26 per ounce; four times the cost of the cheap pet food.

If you are reading this and you are still feeding your dog or cat cheap pet food, then you should eat hotdogs everyday. Keep reminding yourself you´re eating four times better than the dog or the cat. There is no excuse. Cheap pet foods do not save you money, in fact I´ve proven they cost more for each serving. At the very most, cheap pet food manufacturers spend only $0.07 per ounce on ingredients (canned pet foods). I think seasonings cost more than that! Quit feeding your pet by-products and worse. Learn a few pet food ingredient definitions, and feed your pet a high quality food using high quality ingredients. They don´t ooze liquid and don´t stink up your kitchen either!

Wishing you are your pet the best,

Susan Thixton