The Farmer’s Dog Food Review

What is The Farmer’s Dog?

Sometimes “healthy” dog food seems like it’s just regular dog food—bags of dried brown nuggets or cans of unrecognizable slop, but way more expensive. The Farmer’s Dog offers pet food that has a different standard for healthy: The food is made of USDA human-grade ingredients, so it would be safe enough for the dog’s owner to eat, but is complete and balanced for dogs’ nutritional needs.

Many dog lovers want to give their dogs home-cooked, human-food meals, but that process—meal prepping not just for yourself, but for your dog—can be time-consuming, expensive and frustrating. It can be tough to know which foods are right for your dog, and how much to give them, which can lead to serious health issues. The Farmer’s Dog takes the guesswork out of feeding your dog “real food” by delivering a pre-portioned meal plan personalized to your dog’s specific needs, and their age, weight, breed and other characteristics: Just pull a package out of the refrigerator, open the bag and serve.

Inside each bag is a recipe made with one of four proteins—turkey, beef, pork or chicken—that’s mixed with vegetables like sweet potatoes, lentils, bok choy, broccoli and kale. The food is fortified with fish oil and a “nutrient blend” that includes vitamins and amino acids. These recipes have been developed by veterinary nutritionists to provide the complete and balanced diet dogs need to thrive. The nutrition in The Farmer’s Dog meals exceeds the standards of the Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) for pet food.

The vets have also helped determine the right portion sizes to feed your dog. When you sign up for The Farmer’s Dog, you’ll fill out a short questionnaire about your dog, including details about their breed, age, weight, activity levels and body type. This information is used by The Farmer’s Dog to determine the nutrient mix in your dog’s food, as well as the amount she’ll receive in each pre-portioned serving—so you don’t have to measure or guess how much “real food” your dog needs.

Those pre-portioned packages are delivered to your home in an eco-friendly box that acts as a temporary freezer as your dog’s food makes its way to you. And if your dog doesn’t like their fresh recipes, reach out to The Farmer’s Dog. They’ll provide tips and tricks that might help or you can donate any remaining packs to a local shelter and opt for a refund.

When you’ve found recipes your dog loves, The Farmer’s Dog says the human-grade food in their pouches will improve your dog’s health. While there are no direct scientific studies on this specific product, scientists have previously found that when dogs eat fresh vegetables three times per week or more, their risk of cancer is greatly reduced. You can find more information on Fresh Food . And subscribers to The Farmer’s Dog say the food has helped their pets with digestion issues, given them more energy and even made them smell better.

With human-grade food that’s specially designed for your dog’s weight, breed, activity levels and taste, an easy-to-use delivery system, and pre-portioned meals that you simply open and serve, The Farmer’s Dog has earned its reputation as one of the best fresh, healthy, all-natural options for dog food.

How It Works

The Farmer’s Dog delivers pre-cooked, pre-portioned meals to your door that are designed for your specific dog’s weight, breed, size, activity and nutritional needs. But how does the company know how much to send? Here’s how it works.

It starts when you sign up: When you visit the company website, you’ll fill out a simple questionnaire about your dog. This includes their name, age, breed and weight, but also some other information. You’ll be asked to choose your dog’s body shape from a series of photos, rating your canine companion as “too skinny” (with ribs showing), “just right,” “rounded” or “chunky.” You’ll also be asked to answer multiple choice questions that tell The Farmer’s Dog about your dog’s activity level, her eating habits—rating from “very picky” to “will eat anything”—as well as the type of food you’re feeding your dog now.

When you’re done, The Farmer’s Dog will create a two-week trial pack with multiple recipes so your dog can try the food. When we filled in the info for our dog, we were offered a trial pack that included chicken, turkey and beef meals—pork is also available. These meals were designed to give our dog the correct number of calories in each pouch to help her lose a little bit of weight—like more than half of American dogs, our dog is overweight.

Your dog’s specific nutritional needs also determine the price of each delivery from The Farmer’s Dog. Meals for small dogs can cost as little as $2 per day, and average $3 per day. For our slightly larger dog, the discounted trial price was $4.93 per day, with free shipping.

The two week trial of food is delivered in a refrigerated box. Delivery windows and dates can be set to fit your schedule, but The Farmer’s Dog says their refrigerated box will keep the dog food fresh until 11 p.m. on the day of delivery.

The food is already cooked and lightly frozen—not frozen solid. Once taken out of the box, the pre-portioned packages can be moved to the fridge. When it’s dinner time, just pull one of the packages out of the fridge, open it, and empty the specified portion into your dog’s bowl. No measuring is required.

Each meal looks like something us humans would eat: There are chunks of turkey, beef, chicken or pork, and vegetables you can see—bits of sweet potato, parsnip, carrot, spinach, kale and other fresh vegetables are added. The meals are fortified with fish oil and a “nutrient blend” of vitamins and other nutrients like riboflavin and folic acid.

Once your two-week trial is complete, the Farmer’s Dog will bill you and ship food out at your preferred cadence. You can pause or cancel your plan at any time, and you can change the amount of food you’re sent—food is sent in deliveries of at least two weeks’ worth of meals.

If you’re traveling, you can also pre-order meals to take with you in a cooler, or even have one of your shipments sent to a different address—so your dog food will be there when you arrive.

If your dog doesn’t like one of the meals in your two-week trial box—or even later—The Farmer’s Dog lets you take unwanted meals to a local animal shelter, and they’ll refund the price of those meals.

The Farmer’s Dog Ingredients

The Farmer’s Dog offers meals in four different protein options: Beef, turkey, pork and chicken. Each of these protein options is USDA-certified as human-grade food, and is mixed with vegetables—pieces of Brussels sprouts, bok choy, broccoli, kale, sunflower seeds, parsnips and others. These ingredients are mixed with fish oil and a “nutrient blend” of vitamins and minerals including amino acids, folic acid, riboflavin and others.

All of these ingredients are cooked in USDA-inspected kitchens where only other human food is produced. The meals are lightly frozen—not frozen solid—and packaged in portions specific to your dog’s caloric needs.

How Much Does The Farmer’s Dog Cost?

The price of The Farmer’s Dog meals are determined by the weight, age, breed and activity level of your dog. So the price is different for everyone: A dog lover with an older, inactive Pomeranian will pay less than someone with a young yellow lab that runs around all day.

For smaller dogs, the company says plans start as low as $2 per day, with the average daily cost for small dogs at $3 per day. For our dog, a 40-pound rescue, the discounted trial box, from The Farmer’s Dog was $4.93 per day.

Most meal plans will cost $3 to $9 per day. These plans are billed based on your delivery cadence, so this range is $24 per week for a small dog to $63 or more for a larger dog.

That’s expensive, but if your dog has a prescription diet, or even a “premium” kibble or canned option, it may actually be more affordable. And The Farmer’s Dog says that for many customers, the higher cost of feeding their dogs is offset by lower overall vet costs.

How Does It Compare?

With so many pet foods claiming they’re “healthy,” it’s hard to know what’s best for your dog. Here’s how The Farmer’s Dog stacks up against other canine cuisine:

Why We Love It: The Bottom Line

With perfectly portioned, gently cooked, all-natural, human-grade pet meals delivered directly to your door, The Farmer’s Dog has made feeding your dog a healthy, fresh diet simple and seamless.

By obtaining a lot of information about your dog in a short, easy-to-answer questionnaire, The Farmer’s Dog is able to personalize meal plans of vet-developed recipes to your dog’s needs based on age, weight, activity level and eating habits. Those meals are then shipped to your home without additional fees in a refrigerated box, so they stay fresh after being prepared in a USDA-inspected kitchen otherwise used to prepare human food. And because The Farmer’s Dog guarantees that your dog will enjoy the meals, you can test different recipes on the fussiest of eaters until you find the right fit for their food dish.

All of the ingredients are human-grade so you can feel great about what you’re feeding your dog, and the meal is packed with vegetables you can see—according to scientists, feeding your dog fresh vegetables could help ward off harmful diseases. Lovers of The Farmer’s Dog food say their dogs have more energy, shinier coats, and need to visit the vet less often.

Best of all, there’s no weighing, measuring or guessing what the right portion is for your pup: The Farmer’s Dog meals are pre-portioned so you can just open a pack, feed your dog, and know they’re enjoying the perfect amount of fresh food to keep them wagging their tail for years to come.

About The Farmer’s Dog

When Brett Podolsky’s dog Jada had severe digestive issues as a puppy, his vet suggested he try home cooking. Podolsky says that Jada’s issues were solved, and he was inspired to join with cofounder Jonathan Regev to launch The Farmer’s Dog in 2015. The company name was inspired by the idea that farmer’s dogs are known to live longer than other dogs—and the pair hoped to do the same with their subscription pet food service’s high-quality offerings. The company now delivers millions of meals monthly, and is headquartered in New York, NY.