Meow Mix Cat Food Review

When you visit the Meow Mix website you will find a wide variety of product choices including seven dry food varieties, six wet food varieties, and three lines of treats. The “About Us” section of the website provides very little detail about the history of the brand or about its manufacturing process – it simply plays upon the pet owner’s desire to care for their pet with a quality, nutritious diet. If you follow the link to the Big Heart Pet website, you will find more of the same – generalized claims and promises without any real information. When perusing the Meow Mix website, it becomes clear that the brand’s biggest draw lies in its variety – pet owners can choose from a large assortment of formulas and flavors, all at highly affordable prices. If you review the ingredients list for many of Meow Mix’s products, you will find that the brand makes heavy use of corn, wheat, and soy ingredients which are generally considered to be non-nutritive fillers when used in cat food products. In terms of protein, Meow Mix uses a lot of by-product meals and supplemental plant-based proteins. Overall, the Meow Mix brand cannot be considered a high-quality cat food brand and its products have a high risk for aggravating food allergies and sensitivities in cats.

Who Manufactures Meow Mix Cat Food?

The Meow Mix brand of cat food is currently produced and manufactured by the J.M. Smucker Company. Meow Mix was founded more than 40 years ago with the goal of providing cats with the wholesome nutrition they need and the irresistible flavors they love. Meow Mix saw a significant boost in sales with the release of their 1974 tag line, “the cat food cats ask for by name” which was accompanied by the brand’s memorable theme song. Originally a product of the Ralston Purina Company, Meow Mix was acquired by Del Monte Foods in 2006 and later sold to Big Heart Pet Brands. This company was acquired by the J.M. Smucker Company in 2015, adding Meow Mix to a list of brands that also includes Kibbles ‘n Bits, 9Lives, Gravy Train, Nature’s Recipe, and Pup-Peroni.

Meow Mix Cat Food Recalls 2023

The Meow Mix cat food brand has not been affected by any FDA-issued recalls to date. However, if you do a little digging, you will find that the Meow Mix brand was involved in an extensive consumer-funded test in 2015. This test was funded with an IndieGoGo campaign and it revealed that 11 out of 12 tested pet food varieties contained bacteria that were considered serious health threats by the FDA – it also revealed that 4 out of 8 brands had medium or high levels of mycotoxins – the Meow Mix Tender Centers recipe was one of these products. In fact, the Meow Mix product was found to have more than three times the high-risk level of mycotoxin content. The Meow Mix Tender Centers Salon & Turkey Flavor dry food was also found to contain various types of bacteria.

Meow Mix Cat Food Coupons 2023

Overall Meow Mix Cat Food Review

What many consumers love about the Meow Mix cat food brand is that fact that they offer so much variety. The Meow Mix brand recognizes that fact that pets are part of the family and they design their products in a way that helps make the most of mealtime, providing cats with the wholesome nutrition they need with irresistible flavors they are sure to love. The website also claims that Meow Mix is “the only brand cats and parents ask for by name”. Given the information on the Meow Mix website, you might expect this recipe to be made with high-quality ingredients in healthy, balanced recipes. A review of several Meow Mix products reveals, however, that this may not be the case.

When it comes to their cat food products, Meow Mix offers seven different dry varieties, six wet varieties, and three lines of treats – all with an assortment of flavors to choose from. The Meow Mix Bistro Recipes line of products is inspired by restaurant flavors like Rotisserie Chicken and Grilled Salmon while the Tender Centers line of products features dual flavor combinations in crunchy kibbles. Meow Mix offers a dedicate line of dry food products to help control hairballs as well as a line of Kitten Li’l Nibbles which consist of smaller pieces formulated with the protein and fatty acids kittens need to grow big and strong. There is also a line of Seafood Medley dry foods and, of course, the Original Choice recipe featuring chicken, turkey, salmon, and ocean fish. Meow Mix also offers an Indoor Cat formula which is designed to maintain healthy weight for indoor cats.

For wet food options, Meow Mix offers an assortment of Classic Patés made with real beef, tuna, chicken, or turkey as well as an assortment of Soufflés made with chicken, salmon, tuna, and egg. The Paté Toppers line of products includes seafood and poultry flavors shaped into paté and topped with shredded morsels. The Tender Favorites line of products is made up of tasty meats in savory sauces and the Savory Morsels line of products features tender poultry and seafood mixed with savory gravy. In addition to their individual wet food offerings, Meow Mix also offers an assortment of variety packs so your cat can enjoy a mixture of flavor options.

Individual Recipe Review (Dry) Meow Mix Indoor Health Dry Cat Food Formula

According to the Meow Mix website, this Meow Mix Indoor Health Dry Cat Food formula is specially formulated to help indoor cats maintain a healthy weight. The website states that this product is 100% complete and balanced to provide nutrition for adult cats including all essential vitamins and minerals. The package itself shows pictures of the four main protein sources – chicken, turkey, salmon, and ocean fish. All of these things combine to suggest that this is a high-quality source of balanced nutrition for adult indoor cats. If you take the time to review the ingredients list for this product, however, you may find a different story.

Right off the bat, the first ingredient for this Meow Mix Indoor Health Dry Cat Food formula raises a red flag. Ground yellow corn is the first ingredient followed by corn gluten meal. There are two problems here – the fact that corn ingredient appear on the list at all and the fact that the first protein source doesn’t appear until the third slot on the ingredients list. Not only is corn an ingredient that provides low nutritional value for cats, but it is also fairly difficult to digest and it has a high risk for triggering food allergies or sensitivities. The fact that ground yellow corn is the main ingredient in this product is highly troubling, especially when paired with another corn ingredient listed second.

Chicken by-product meal is the third ingredient on the list and the primary source of protein for this product. The fact that this ingredient comes from a named source (chicken versus “poultry”) is good, but by-product meals are generally not considered a high-quality ingredient. Chicken by-product meal is made from rendered chicken carcasses and includes bone, offal, and undeveloped eggs as well as some feathers. This ingredient does contain high levels of protein but its quality can vary greatly from one batch to another – it would be much better to see either fresh chicken or chicken meal as the primary source of protein for this Meow Mix Indoor Health Dry Cat Food formula.

After the chicken by-product meal comes soybean meal followed by beef tallow, soy hulls, and brewers rice. Soybean meal is usually a byproduct of the process through which oil is extracted from soybeans and it is generally used as a protein supplement in pet food. Soy hulls are another byproduct of this process and they are generally used as a fiber supplement in pet foods. Brewers rice is made from the milled fragments of rice kernels and it too is a fiber supplement. While cats can benefit from some fiber in their diet to help reduce hairballs and promote healthy digestion, both of these sources of fiber provide little nutritional value. It would be much better to see a whole grain like brown rice or a gluten-free carbohydrate like sweet potato or peas included in this recipe.

In addition to these ingredients, this Meow Mix Indoor Health Dry Cat Food formula includes beef tallow as the primary source of fat as well as several supplementary protein sources. Beef tallow is a rendered fat commonly used in pet foods and, while it is an animal-based fat, it is very low in linoleic acid – its primary benefit is the flavor it gives to the product. The remaining protein sources listed for this recipe include turkey by-product meal (which is very similar to chicken by-product meal), salmon meal, and ocean fish meal. The latter two of these three ingredients are considered high-quality additions to cat food but they appear so far down the list that they are unlikely to be included in any significant quantity. Dehydrated alfalfa meal also appears on the ingredients list and is likely included as a supplemental source of protein.

Overall, this Meow Mix Indoor Health Dry Cat Food formula has a guaranteed analysis as follows:

• Crude Protein (Min) – 31%
• Crude Fat (Min) – 11%
• Crude Fiber (Max) – 9%
• Moisture (Max) – 12%
• Calcium (Min) – 1.0%
• Phosphorus (Min) – 0.8%

This formula meets the AAFCO nutritional requirements for cats in all life stages. According to the feeding instructions on the Meow Mix website, adult cats weighing between 5 and 9 pounds should be fed ½ to 1 cup of food daily. If you compare the guaranteed analysis and feeding instructions for this product to other dry cat food formulas, you will notice a number of significant differences. For one thing, this product does not provide the calorie content and the daily feeding recommendations is much higher than the typical dry cat food. This, combined with the high fiber content (9%) of the product might lead the consumer to suspect that this Meow Mix Indoor Health Dry Cat Food formula is not particularly well balanced. It does, of course, meet the minimum nutritional requirements for cats according to AAFCO feeding trials but it seems to have more of the ingredients your cat doesn’t need and less of the ones he does.

Final Thoughts

Overall, this Meow Mix Indoor Health Dry Cat Food formula may be considered “complete and balanced” by AAFCO, but it cannot be considered a quality source of nutrition for cats. Not only does it list two corn-based ingredients at the top of the ingredients list but most of the protein comes from plant-based sources or by-product meals. The high percentage of crude fiber (9% max) for this recipe points toward very high carbohydrate content which is very troubling considering the fact that cats have a very limited ability to digest plant materials and the recommended maximum fiber content of dry cat food is 5%. This recipe is also missing some beneficial additives like dried fermentation products (probiotics to support healthy digestion) and chelated minerals which are bound to protein molecules, making them easier for your cat’s body to digest and absorb. All in all, this Meow Mix Indoor Health Dry Cat Food formula provides low to moderate quality nutrition for cats and it has a high likelihood of triggering food allergies, sensitivities, or other digestive issues.