Human-grade dog food can help your dog live a longer, healthier life because it is free from some of the most harmful ingredients that contribute to canine health issues. However, it can be challenging to choose from the different options, including PetPlate and The Farmer’s Dog, two of the best fresh dog food companies today. These are two really really well known fresh dog food brands. PetPlate even appeared on Shark Tank and got nationwide notoriety and somehow The Farmer’s Dog seems to keep pace with no problem.
While we also have a separate extensive reviews for each brand, read on to discover how The Farmer’s Dog meals compete with PetPlate’s. Both brands offer a variety of recipes including chicken, turkey, pork, and beef recipes. After eating several recipes from both of these companies, I want to report back on how these dog foods stack up in terms of several important factors like Quality, Convenience, and Cost.
Who should get PetPlate?
PetPlate can be a good choice if you’re looking for a company that offers a lot of variety in their recipes and they’re also very competitive on cost; although I think if cost is a main driving factor in your decision, you should probably check out Nom Nom. They’re just about the same price and I think their food is absolutely great.
Who should get The Farmer’s Dog?
The Farmer’s Dog makes a superior quality food that tastes absolutely delicious. It is an excellent choice if what you’re really concerned with is the quality of the food and you want to make sure your dog has absolutely delicious meals he would surely enjoy.
Quality
I like testing a fresh dog food’s quality by appearance, smell, taste, and ingredients. See how PetPlate and The Farmer’s Dog compare.
Appearance
I would say the recipes from both PetPlate and The Farmer’s Dog look great but there is a clear winner.
PetPlate recipes have nice, large chunks of vegetables like green beans, peas, carrots, and potatoes. They also have whole grains, but the meat tends to be quite ground and looks a little bit like a paste in most cases, with the exception of the pork dish which had larger chunks of meat.
The Farmer’s Dog on the other hand has visibly big chunks of all the vegetables like broccoli and carrots as well as grains like lentils. My favorite part is the way the meats come in big appetizing pieces. What’s also really great about The Farmer’s Dog is that the colors are quite vibrant— the broccoli is bright green and the carrots are bright orange. The dishes definitely look like something you want to eat and not just like a regular boring dog food. More than anything, it looks really fresh. So while recipes from both brands look pretty good, I’d say The Farmer’s Dog is the clear winner when it comes to visual appearance.
Smell
Neither brand really stood out in terms of smell, so they don’t diverge too much. Both smelled appetizing, clean, and fresh for the most part, and you could pick out the individual ingredients based on the aroma in a lot of cases. Neither of them have any off-putting scent or any sort of herbal flavors like there are with some other dog food brands.
Taste
Unfortunately the flavors of the PetPlate recipes were pretty strong and I wasn’t too excited about trying them again. That said, what PetPlate had going for it was the really nice texture from those large chunks of vegetables and grains. It did make up for the strong flavor quite a bit and made the eating experience more pleasant. However, the dishes still kind of tasted like dog food. I think that the strong flavor comes from the inclusion of too much organ meat in the recipes, although The Farmer’s Dog also includes organ meat in their recipes, so I don’t think my aversion to organ meat would be responsible for this sort of discrepancy in my opinions.
The Farmer’s Dog’s recipes on the other hand are absolutely delicious across the board. They’re always a pleasure to eat and they’re definitely among the best fresh dog foods that I’ve tried. The textures are great, the flavors are really clean and fresh, you can really taste what’s going on in the recipes, and they’re even leaning towards delicious. If you want to feel good about the flavors of the food you’re feeding your dog, I’d say The Farmer’s Dog is about as good as it gets and they definitely take the upper hand against PetPlate in terms of depth of recipes.
Overall The Farmer’s Dog wins in terms of taste.
Ingredients
PetPlate offers six different flavors for pet parents to choose from, whereas The Farmer’s Dog only offers four recipes. Both companies create fresh dog food that are formulated by board certified veterinary nutritionists, so they’re nutritionally complete and balanced to meet AAFCO standards. Furthermore, PetPlate and The Farmer’s Dog use human grade ingredients and they cook the food in USDA kitchens so it’s subjected to the same safety standards used for human food.
In terms of nutrition the main thing that I look at is their protein content as fed. Both PetPlate and The Farmer’s Dog’s recipes vary from about 8% to 11% protein as fed so they’re nearly identical in that regard and they’re also pretty much in line with what you see commonly across fresh dog food brands.
Convenience
Let’s see how convenient these companies are for pet owners when it comes to managing and canceling your subscriptions, shipping speeds, and how the products are packaged.
Purchasing
For the purpose of convenience, like most fresh dog food brands out there, both PetPlate and The Farmer’s Dog do require you to have a subscription in order to purchase their food for your pet. However, just like all the other fresh dog food companies, it’s super easy to cancel your subscription if you decide it’s not for you. I did mine just by logging into my account dashboard on their websites, and with a few clicks, I was able to cancel my subscriptions. No further other shipments and no further charges.
Shipping
In terms of shipping, The Farmer’s Dog is definitely faster in my experience. With pet plate I placed my order on a Sunday night and my shipment came two Tuesdays after that— so it was a full six business days between when I placed my order and when I received the package With The Farmer’s Dog on the other hand, I place my order also on a Sunday night and it was on my doorstep the following Wednesday. It only took two full business days between placing my order and receiving my shipment. That was pretty fast, but of course shipping times might vary depending on where you live in the United States.
Both come well-packed on dry ice so that the food is nicely frozen upon arrival. PetPlate’s shipping materials and insulation are completely recyclable so you can just place the whole thing in your recycling bin once it’s unpacked. The Farmer’s Dog on the other hand uses cellulose insulation that you have to dissolve in water and run down your sink—I find is a little bit more of a hassle.
The Farmer’s Dog definitely takes the cake in terms of speed while PetPlate still has something to offer when it comes to packing materials
Packaging
PetPlate sends their food in plastic containers with a lid, which are perfect for storage. The containers also have ingredients and nutritional information on them which is a nice touch. Each container holds 12 ounces or about 340 grams of food. This is a good amount to thaw at a time; it means you’re less likely to have leftovers.
The Farmer’s Dog also does a nice job with the packaging. They vacuum seal their frozen patties in thin blocks which helps for a speedy defrosting. What I didn’t love about The Farmer’s Dog’s packaging is that there’s no easy peel tabs so you’ll have to get a pair of scissors dirty every time you open it up. Each frozen patty was right about a pound. This is a little bit more than PetPlate but definitely not too much. When it comes time to serving the food, just take it out of your freezer and put it in your fridge the night before so it thaws. Once defrosted, PetPlate says the food should be consumed within one week, whereas The Farmer’s Dog says you only have about four days.
Cost
Of course we have to talk about costs which I always compare based on a dollars per pound basis. This helps keep things fair because the way each of these fresh dog food companies evaluate your dog’s nutritional requirements is a little bit different so they end up giving you different amounts of food in their plans. As a result, the dollars per week or dollars per day basis that they give you is not necessarily an apples to apples comparison.
According to my calculations, PetPlate comes in at about $4 per pound which is about as cheap as it gets. The only other fresh dog food I’ve tried that’s that cheap is Nom Nom and they’re definitely worth checking out because the quality of their food is excellent. The Farmer’s Dog on the other hand comes in at about $7 per pound which is right in the middle of fresh dog food prices, but perhaps a little on the high side. Nonetheless, their dog food definitely tastes great so I think it’s worth it.
PetPlate and The Farmer’s Dog have a lot of similarities as human-grade [1], freshly-cooked dog food products. However, there are some subtle differences to keep in mind when you’re choosing between them. PetPlate is much cheaper on the dollars per pound basis; meanwhile, The Farmer’s Dog’s fresh dog food, although more expensive, has a more superior quality based on appearance and taste.
