Special Report

The 12 Worst Cat Food Brands, Ranked

Kathryn Koehler

Published: December 30, 2023 11:10 am

Cats are carnivores. The best cat food brands prioritize a higher percentage of protein over carbohydrates. This ensures that cats receive the essential nutrients required for their overall health and well-being. Top-quality cat foods avoid the use of by-products and fillers, steering clear of unnecessary additives that compromise the nutritional value of the diet. A well-balanced cat food should have a minimal carbohydrate content. However, many readily available brands of cat food are the opposite. They are loaded with carbohydrates and by-products, which include any number of unsavory animal parts. This is especially true of dry cat food, across most brands. Continue reading to discover the 12 worst cat food brands, ranked.

The 12 Worst Cat Food Brands: Overview

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Though you encounter a mind-numbing number of different brands at the grocery, 5 corporations: Colgate-Palmolive, General Mills, J M Smucker, Mars, and Nestle, produce the lion’s share of the cat food on your grocer’s shelves. Our basis for evaluating the worst cat food brands focused on three key aspects:

• Is the primary ingredient meat? High-quality cat food should feature real, identifiable sources of meat, such as chicken, beef, or fish. Cats have evolved to be meat eaters that require high-protein diets.
• Is the protein-to-carbohydrate percentage balanced? Optimal feline nutrition requires a higher proportion of protein than carbohydrates. While carbohydrates produce energy, unused carbs are stored as fat.
• Are there fillers and by-products on the ingredients list? The best cat foods avoid unnecessary additives, fillers, and by-products. Such additives are generally heavily processed and consist of ground bones and intestines.

Armed with that criteria, we started reading labels! Here’s what we discovered!

12. 9Lives Dry

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• Owner/parent: J M Smucker
• Established: 1958
• Objectionable ingredients: Whole ground corn, chicken by-product meal, soybean meal, corn, gluten meal, beef fat, preserved with mixed tocopherols, whole wheat, meat and bone meal, animal digest, titanium dioxide

Back in the day, the spokescat for 9Lives was Morris. He was so popular that he ran for president in 1988. Morris would not be amused or approve of the lack of actual meat in this recipe. Not only is meat not the first listed ingredient, it’s 7th on the list! And even then it’s mixed with bone meal. It’s more of a concept than an actual ingredient. Titanium dioxide for color?  While cats do see colors, they don’t enjoy the full spectrum of colors that humans do, and even if they did? They wouldn’t care what color their food is.

11. Fancy Feast Gourmet Dry

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• Owner/parent: Nestlé
• Established: 1982
• Objectionable ingredients: Brewers rice, poultry by-product meal, corn gluten meal, animal fat preserved with mixed-tocopherols, ground yellow corn, soybean meal, animal Llver flavor, chicken, turkey, Artificial Flavors, Choline Chloride

Chicken and turkey are finally listed, 8th and 9th, respectively, after 7 carbohydrate-rich and fatty ingredients. Fancy Feast’s marketing strategy appeals to a particular breed – of person, not cat. They’re the type who enjoy words like fancy and gourmet and pretend to like opera. They no doubt believe that they’re feeding their cat a healthful diet. It pays to read labels.

10. Cat Chow Dry

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• Owner/parent: Nestlé
• Established: 1962
• Objectionable ingredients: Chicken by-product meal, whole grain corn, soy flour, whole grain wheat, corn gluten meal, rice, beef fat preserved with mixed tocopherols, chicken, soybean hulls,  powdered cellulose, red 40, blue 2, yellow 5

You may be noting some similarities in these ingredients. And not in a good way. Though Cat Chow touts chicken by-product meal as its primary ingredient, that’s not the flex they want you to think it is.  Chicken by-product meal is the result of heavily processing a chicken carcass. The second ingredient, whole grain corn, is simply not an appropriate food for cats. Also, again with the food dyes. Totally unnecessary.

9. Kit n’ Kaboodle Dry

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• Owner/parent: Nestlé
• Established: 1980s
• Objectionable ingredients: Ground yellow corn, corn gluten meal, soybean meal, meat and bone meal, animal fat, preserved with mixed tocopherols, chicken by-product meal, choline chloride, red 40, yellow 5  blue 2

Corn, corn, and more corn. Feral cats are not ravaging corn fields in search of their next meal. And the artificial colors are beyond the pale – they have no nutritional value, and your cat doesn’t care about the visual aesthetics of its food. Especially food so far removed from its natural diet that it’s unrecognizable in te first place. The aesthetics re purely for the benefit of the cat’s custodian and Nestlé’s bottom line.

8. Meow Mix Dry

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• Owner/parent: JM Smucker
• Established: 1974
• Objectionable ingredients: Whole ground corn, soybean meal, chicken by-product meal, corn gluten meal, beef tallow (preserved with mixed tocopherols), animal digest, turkey by-product meal,  choline chloride, salt, titanium dioxide (color)

So while it sounds disgusting, animal digest is generally liver, or other organ meats, which cats find tasty. It is possibly the meatiest ingredient on this list. It is also controversial. While animal digest is a good source of protein, it is also highly processed. And with little to no oversight, the quality of the ingredients varies significantly across brands. Chicken by-product meal and turkey by-product meal consist of all parts of a carcass that has been stripped of its viable flesh (meat), except for the feathers. Everything else is fair game: intestines, bones, feet. Just not a lot of meat. Also, salt? Just no.

7. Friskies Dry

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• Owner/parent: Nestlé
• Established: 1950s
• Objectionable ingredients: Ground yellow corn, chicken by-product meal, corn gluten meal, soybean meal, ground wheat, beef tallow preserved with mixed tocopherols, chicken, natural liver flavor, red 40, yellow 6,  yellow 5,  blue 2

Same song different verse. At least the word chicken made it into the top two ingredients. King corn is still the number one ingredient and they’ve thrown an extra coloring agent into the mix. Friskies was once a trusted name in cat food. Nestlé continues to trade on brand recognition, without supplying the quality consumers have come to expect.

6. Purina Deli Dry

Source: MarieDolphin / iStock via Getty Images

• Owner/parent: Nestlé
• Established: 2001
• Objectionable ingredients: Ground yellow corn, soybean meal, corn gluten meal, meat and bone meal, animal fat preserved with mixed-tocopherols, turkey by-product meal, animal liver flavor, preserved with mixed tocopherols, salt, Choline Chloride, added Color, red 40, yellow 5, blue 2

Coming in at number one once again is corn. Would you feed your cat corn? Would it even cross your mind that a cat food marketed with the word deli would contain more corn than meat?  Me neither.

5. Whiskas Indoor with Real Chicken

Source: Ingus Kruklitis / iStock via Getty Images

• Owner/parent: Mars
• Established: in 1936, as Kal-Kan
• Objectionable ingredients: Ground whole-grain corn, chicken by-product meal, corn gluten meal, wheat, soybean meal, powdered cellulose, dried plain beet pulp, animal fat, preserved with mixed tocopherols, pork meat and bonemeal, natural flavor, chicken

Whiskas Indoor with Real Chicken gets props for the sheer audacity of promoting the fantasy that this cat food is made with real chicken, the 13th listed ingredient.

4. Special Kitty Complete Nutrition

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• Owner/parent: JM Smuckers
• Established: 1983
• Objectionable ingredients: Chicken by-product meal, ground whole grain corn, ground wheat, soybean meal, meat and bone meal, animal fat

Chicken by-product meal is the first ingredient on the list, and while it’s not exactly meat, at least it’s not corn, which has fallen to number 2.  There are still questionable ingredients in Special Kitty, but not as many.

3. SportsMix Dry

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• Owner/parent: Midwestern Pet Foods
• Established: 1926
• Objectionable ingredients: Ground corn, chicken by-product meal, corn gluten meal, chicken fat (preserved with mixed tocopherols), soybean meal, ground wheat

Midwestern Pet Foods is a 4th-generation family operation. They still use corn as the primary ingredient in a food for carnivores. Go figure. Once again, this cat food may not include any actual meat. While we like to support small businesses, this isn’t one we’d be willing to patronize.

2. Royal Canin

Source: Eric Isselee / Shutterstock.com

• Owner/parent: Mars
• Established: 1968
• Objectionable Ingredients: Chicken meal, brown rice, rice, corn, corn gluten meal, chicken fat, chicken, natural chicken flavor, pea fiber, rice flour, rice hulls, wheat gluten, sodium silico aluminate, dried brewers yeast, fructooligosaccharides

Chicken meal is the first ingredient in Royal Canin. However, chicken meal is simply a chicken carcass that has been processed. While this cat food contains trace amounts of actual meat, it’s unlikely that it will give your cat the necessary nutrition.

1. Purina One Chicken Dry

Source: Kryssia Campos / Moment via Getty Images

• Owner/parent: Nestlé
• Established: 1986
• Objectionable ingredients: Chicken, corn gluten meal, whole grain corn, chicken by-product meal, whole grain wheat, soybean meal, beef fat preserved with mixed tocopherols.

Chicken is at the top of the list, but the dreaded corn comes in second. And third. This is not the sort of food your cat would stalk. If your cat has been acting aloof and ignoring you, perhaps you should consider that it’s not you, it’s the lack of nutrition in the food. But then again…