Dog owners who treat their furry friends like family want to make sure they get the best nutrition, which unfortunately cannot be sustained by traditional dog food. Finding the best dog food delivery services that meet your dog’s needs can sometimes be a challenge, so finding a dog food service that makes food that is formulated for your dog’s needs is the best solution.
PetPlate has a lot of high stat reviews online, but I wanted to take a deeper look into PetPlate’s dog food delivery service to help guide pet owners like you in deciding if this is for your dog.
You may have heard PetPlate on Shark Tank, the show that really helped this fresh dog food company take off. But is their food something I would want to feed my dog? Where PetPlate shines is with the variety of their recipes and the affordable cost. Overall, I think it’s a decent fresh dog food brand and you can’t really go wrong with PetPlate. That said, I think there are probably some better brands out there.
Quality
I sampled four of PetPlate’s recipes, beef, pork, turkey and chicken. To give you an idea on their level of quality, I did a thorough inspection of their appearance, smell, taste, and ingredients.
Appearance
Across the board visually that place recipes tend to have nice big chunks of the vegetables and the grains but the meat tends to be a little bit more ground more paste like rather than full chunks of tissue
The vegetables in the beef recipe are really pleasant looking. You can easily see nice, big chunks of whole peas, carrots, and potatoes. The meat itself, however, looks more like a paste making it a little bit less appetizing than other fresh dog foods.
With the pork recipe, it also has really nice big pieces of the vegetables—whole green beans, nice, big chunks of carrots, and what appears to be buckwheat. The pork meat looks a little bit more appetizing that the beef dish as there’s bigger chunks of actual pork tissue.
Similarly, the turkey recipe also has vibrant chunks of green beans, carrots and what appears to be brown rice. The nice dark brown grains look pretty fancy paired with the turkey; but like the beef recipe, the meat looks ground and a bit more like a paste instead of chunks of turkey that could have made it more interesting to eat.
Looking at the chicken dish, you can also get chunks of green beans, some sweet potatoes once again the meat looks a bit more on the ground side or even pureed.
Smell
In summary, I would say that these four recipes from PetPlate smell pretty good and definitely appetizing.
The beef dish gave off a nice, clean smell of real beef with a hint of the green peas. There are no off-putting aromas and the food doesn’t smell heavy.
Although the pork smell doesn’t really cut through, you can easily get the green beans and the aroma of some sweet potatoes with a little bit of a sweetness. The pork recipe definitely smells appetizing.
The turkey actually has a pretty good aroma, however, it has my nose stumped as I could not be sure what ingredient it is that’s responsible for the smells. But as mentioned, it has a pleasant and appetizing smell—something that if I’m happy to give a try, dogs will too.
Aside from the aroma or real chicken meat, you could also smell the green beans in the chicken dish by PetPlate. You can also get a hint of sweet potatoes because of that sort of sweetness to it.
Taste
After trying out these four dishes from PetPlate, I would say that they are not the best tasting fresh dog foods that I’ve tried. Still, they are not bad and their biggest strength is the textures and fresh taste of the whole vegetables in each recipe.
PetPlate’s beef dish definitely tastes like beef and the flavor of the peas comes through nicely. The textures of the vegetables are definitely pleasant too. Although I did not quite like how pasty it looked, the texture of the beef when eaten is actually not as bad as I expected. One thing to note is that there is a bit of a heavy flavor in this recipe which is leaning a little bit towards tasting like regular dog food. Typically when I get this flavor, I’m guessing it’s from the recipe being a bit heavy-handed on the organ meat but I’m not entirely sure. I would say, however, it tastes pretty good.
There’s no denying that I prefer the pork to the beef after I tried both. I enjoyed the chunks of the pork tissue but what really stood out to me was the chewiness of the grain. I’m guessing it’s not buckwheat because that is a little bit more body to it than that; it could probably be barley or maybe something a little bit different—one of the less common grains that that I come across here in the United States. Overall, I’d say the pork tastes pretty good. However I will note that there is a bit of a lingering flavor on my palette which, once again, a little bit more indicative of regular dog food rather than fresh human-grade food.
In my opinion, the turkey dish is pretty interesting. It definitely tastes clean and doesn’t have that sort of heavy flavor that I detected predominantly in the beef and a little bit in the pork. Although the turkey meat is ground turkey, the texture is not so bad, same goes for the vegetables. The interesting part for me is the sweet flavor, although I’m not entirely sure where it’s coming from (if it’s not sweet potato, it’s probably something else). Overall I’d say the turkey dish is not bad nor offensive at all, but it’s also not super delicious. Especially compared to the beef and pork dishes, the turkey recipe is a little bit more pleasant.
The chicken is not bad either. I would say it’s pretty tasty and with very nice textures. As with all the other recipes, the texture of the vegetables is very pleasant, but the meat is a little bit more ground here as I sort of expected from how it looked. The flavor was pretty good, although there’s a little bit of that heavy flavor here again. I’m guessing that these flavors are all on account of the organ meat, but I could be wrong.
Ingredients
Another thing that I like about PetPlate is that they do offer six recipes which is more than you typically see from fresh dog food brands. They have beef, chicken, turkey, and lamb; and they have two recipes that they call functional recipes which are the pork and the venison. The pork recipe is high in protein and fiber while the venison is low in fat and is supposed to be easier for a dog to digest.
All of PetPlate’s recipes are formulated by board certified veterinary nutritionists so there’s a guarantee that they provide complete and whole nutrition that meets AAFCO standards. PetPlate uses human-grade ingredients and they make their food in USDA kitchens adhering to the same safety standards that are used to make human food.
When it comes to nutrition, the biggest thing that I really look at is the protein content. PetPlate’s recipes range from about 8% to 11% as fed which is fairly typical across fresh dog food brands.
Protein Content
- Beef 7.9%
- Chicken 10.8%
- Turkey 9%
- Pork 11%
Convenience
Let’s talk about the convenience of PetPlate for dog owners in terms of things like managing your subscription, shipping speed, and how the food itself is packaged.
Purchasing
Like most fresh dog food brands you do have to sign up for a subscription if you want to buy PetPlate for your pup. However, also like other brands, it’s really easy to cancel your subscription if you decide that PetPlate’s not the right choice for your pup. Just log in to your account dashboard on their website and you can cancel your plan from there. They’ll ask you a few questions as to why you’re canceling but with a few clicks, you’re good to go—no more shipments, no more billing.
Shipping
In my experience, my shipment from PetPlate was on the slow side for sure. I placed my order on a Sunday night and it was delivered two Tuesdays after that so that’s a full six business days before it reached my door. Most fresh dog food brands ship faster than that; the only exception in my experience was A Pup Above and I think it was eight business days in their case. Of course, shipping times will likely vary based on your location in the United States.
Packaging
The food itself is packaged in 12-ounce containers or about 340 grams per pack, which is a nice size as you don’t have to defrost too much at once and risk it going bad. I like that PetPlate is packaged in plastic containers; it makes them easy to store, quick to open, and just generally effortless to work with.
It’s also a nice touch that the ingredients and the nutritional information are right there on the container. When it’s time to serve, just defrost the food overnight in the fridge. Once it’s thawed, PetPlate says it’s good in the fridge for up to a week. They do not recommend leaving the fresh dog food at room temperature any longer than two hours, which is probably good advice for food safety purposes. This recommendation is something I’m surprised I haven’t seen from other fresh dog food brands so far. PetPlate also recommends zapping the food in the microwave for 10 to 30 seconds to help bring out the flavors and make it more appealing for your dog. I didn’t do that myself but it’s certainly another approach you could take.
Cost
What about cost? How does PetPlate stack up to other fresh dog food brands? To keep things fair, I always like to compare the price of fresh dog food on a dollars per pound basis. This does take a little bit of calculation but if you just look at the dollars per week or dollars per day figures that they give you, it’s not an apples-to-apples comparison because the amount of food you’re getting from each vendor tends to vary.
My maths has PetPlate coming in at about four dollars per pound which is about as low as it gets. This is a similar price to what you get with Nom Nom. Other than that, it’s cheaper than every other fresh dog food that I’ve tried. That said, I think the quality of the food that you’re getting with Nom Nom is a bit better so it’s worth checking them out. And if you don’t mind spending a little bit more money on your pet’s food, I’d recommend checking out The Farmer’s Dog—that’s definitely one of the best tasting fresh dog foods out there.
If you are like me who likes serving their dog the fresh dog food made with high-quality ingredients in an accessible way, then I highly recommend PetPlate in order to make sure your dog is the happiest and healthiest they possibly can be! Another plus is that PetPlate is one of the most affordable brands out there, however, there are still others with higher quality fresh dog food at a similar price.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Is PetPlate successful?
PetPlate might not have gotten a deal on Shark Tank, but that doesn’t mean the company isn’t successful today! The founder, Renaldo Webb, says that he took the advice of the Shark Tank Team to heart and used it to improve his product and method of sales, and now, according to Insidergrowth.com, PetPlate is “extremely successful.”
Is PetPlate human-grade?
Yes. PetPlate is made with ingredients that are considered human-grade and not feed-grade. This means there are no fillers, such as leftover parts after butchering (intestines, bones, etc.) [1]. Human-grade foods are healthier and overall better for our dogs, and this is what PetPlate uses exclusively.
How long does PetPlate last?
When refrigerated, PetPlate lasts for up to five days. When stored in the freezer, PetPlate products may last for up to one year.
Where is PetPlate made?
PetPlate products are made in upstate New York in a facility that is set up to USDA standards. The facility uses the same protocols as Whole Foods, all of their fresh dog food meets AAFCO standards, and you don’t have to worry about the cleanliness of the facility where PetPlate is manufactured.
Who owns PetPlate?
Founder Renaldo Webb, who took his product and idea before the Shark Tank panel, still owns PetPlate. Webb founded the company in 2016, and the company became nationally recognized in 2017. With the amount of support from pet owners across the nation, he has seen great success since the official launch of the company even though his product was not offered a deal on Shark Tank.
