They Give Us Their Best. Shouldn’t We Give Them Ours?

Why the quality of the ingredients in your dog’s food really matters

Yesterday was International Dog Day – a day dedicated to celebrating the dogs who make our lives better in so many different ways.

The loyal companions. The walking partners. The sofa stealers. The enthusiastic greeters. And, of course, the four-legged family members who somehow know precisely when a packet of treats has been opened from three rooms away.

But once International Dog Day is over, there’s something we can do for our dogs every single day of the year.

Think carefully about what we put in their bowls.

At Broadleaf Grain Free, we believe good nutrition starts with good ingredients. But with so many different dog foods on the market – and so many claims on the front of the bag – understanding what constitutes a quality dog food isn’t always as straightforward as it might seem.

So, what should we really be looking for?

Not All Dog Food Is Created Equal

Walk down any pet food aisle and you’ll find bags promising everything from healthy digestion and glossy coats to complete nutrition and irresistible flavour.

But turn those bags around and look more closely at what’s actually inside and you can find considerable differences in the ingredients used, the amount and type of animal protein included and the way those ingredients have been prepared.

For us, that matters.

Dogs need a nutritionally complete and balanced diet, but we also believe the quality, provenance and preparation of the ingredients used to provide that nutrition deserve attention.

That philosophy is one of the reasons we chose to work with GA Pet Food to produce the Broadleaf Grain Free range.

GA has more than 30 years’ experience producing pet food and works with carefully selected farms and fisheries, with suppliers vetted and audited to support quality, consistency and traceability.

It Starts With the Ingredients

Take a look at the Broadleaf Grain Free range and you’ll notice something we’re particularly proud of: clearly identified sources of animal protein and high levels of meat or fish across many of our recipes.

Depending on the recipe, you’ll find ingredients such as freshly prepared beef, turkey, chicken, lamb, duck and fish, alongside carefully selected vegetables, fruits and botanicals.

And there’s an important point here.

Quality dog food isn’t simply about putting a high protein percentage on the front of a bag. It’s also worth asking:

Where has that protein come from? What ingredients are providing it? How have they been sourced? And how have they been prepared?

GA’s approach starts at carefully selected farms and fisheries. Its suppliers are vetted and audited and its ingredient sourcing system is designed to provide traceability right back to the day an ingredient was collected.

GA also specifically offers recipes featuring high levels of freshly prepared meat and distinctive protein sources, including ingredients such as Angus beef and Scottish salmon.

That level of attention to the raw ingredients is important to us – because you can’t make great food without starting with great ingredients.

Fresh Really Does Mean Fresh

There’s another difference that we think deserves much more attention: what happens to those ingredients before they become kibble.

Fresh meat used by GA is transported from source to its Lancashire production facility in the company’s own refrigerated vehicles, maintained at a consistent 4°C to preserve freshness.

When it arrives, each delivery is inspected and tested in GA’s on-site laboratories before being approved for production, including testing for harmful bacteria such as E. coli and Salmonella.

Only after passing those checks does the fresh meat move into GA’s Meat Kitchen for preparation.

And this is where things get particularly interesting.

Rather than simply treating the manufacture of kibble as one high-temperature industrial process, GA has developed its own approach to preparing fresh ingredients called Freshtrusion®.

The fresh meats are gently cooked at a lower temperature for longer. A process GA says helps protect the quality and structure of the protein, retain the natural characteristics of the ingredients and improve digestibility.

There’s much more to Freshtrusion® than we can cover here. So we’re going to devote the next article in The Broadleaf Dog Guide entirely to how it works. And furthe, why the way your dog’s food is prepared can matter just as much as the ingredients.

Knowing What You’re Feeding

Perhaps one of the biggest changes we’d like to encourage is a very simple one:

Turn the bag over.

Don’t choose a dog food solely because of the photograph, headline or marketing claim on the front.

• Look at the ingredients.
• Look at the named sources of protein.
• Look at the meat or fish content.
• Look at what else has been added.
• And ask yourself whether the manufacturer makes it easy for you to understand what you are feeding your dog.

We think dog owners deserve that transparency.

Over the coming weeks, we’ll be taking a much closer look at dog food labels in The Broadleaf Dog Guide. Including what some of the terminology means and what you should look for when comparing one food with another.

Because once you know how to read a pet food label, choosing between two apparently similar bags can become a very different experience.

Quality You Can Put Your Name To

Broadleaf Grain Free is an independent business, and that means the food carrying our name matters enormously to us.

We don’t manufacture the food ourselves. Instead, we work with an experienced British pet food manufacturer whose approach to ingredient sourcing, traceability, testing and preparation reflects the standards we want for Broadleaf.

GA Pet Food itself remains family owned and produces its foods at Plocks Farm in the Lancashire countryside. Its roots there date back to the Bracewell family’s farming business in 1972, with GA Pet Food established in 1992.

For us, knowing where and how our food is made is important.

Because ultimately, there’s a very simple question behind everything we do:

Would we be happy to feed it to our own dogs?

If the answer isn’t yes, it shouldn’t have Broadleaf Grain Free on the bag.

They Give Us Their Best

International Dog Day may only come around once a year.

But our dogs give us their companionship, loyalty and seemingly limitless enthusiasm every day.

We think what goes into their bowls should reflect just how much they mean to us.

So next time you open a bag of dog food, take a moment to look beyond the branding on the front.

Look at what’s actually inside.

Because better ingredients, carefully sourced and thoughtfully prepared, are a pretty good place to start when it comes to giving our dogs the nutrition they deserve.

Coming next in The Broadleaf Dog Guide

What Is Freshtrusion®? From Farm to Your Dog’s Bowl

We’ll go behind the scenes of the process used to make Broadleaf Grain Free, following fresh ingredients from carefully selected farms and fisheries through chilled transportation, quality testing, the Meat Kitchen and finally into your dog’s food.