Alpo Dog Food Reviews (Ratings, Recalls & Ingredients!)
About the Company
Purina Alpo is one of the oldest dog food companies, founded in 1936 in Allentown, Pennsylvania. The brand is based on the principle that dogs love bold meat flavors, so that’s what Alpo tries to deliver.
Alpo guarantees that each of its products provides a balanced diet, rich in protein and packed with essential nutrients and vitamins. The company prides itself on the fact that, for 80 years, it has stuck to its same belief system that meat and protein are what dogs crave and need to stay happy and healthy.
Dry Food
Food | Quality | Our Rating |
|---|---|---|
C | ||
C- |
Canned Food
Food | Quality | Rating |
|---|---|---|
C | ||
C+ | ||
B+ | ||
A- | ||
A |
Is Alpo a good dog food? I’m not so sure. The brand has been around for a long time and its loyal customers seem to love it. In fact, there is a featured Purina Alpo dog food review for several of its products on the website, all armed with praise for the brand.
But, I’m not sure how much I can trust these reviews since they all seem to be 5-star reviews. So, I took to the internet to come to a more balanced conclusion, plus added in my own thoughts based on the ingredients.
Consumer Affairs shows 193 Alpo reviews, the majority of which are negative. Dog owners complain that their otherwise healthy dogs have become severely ill, or even died, after eating this food consistently for a week or more. That’s scary news for a dog owner.
The ingredients on the labels of Alpo products completely turn me off from ever wanting to give my dog this food, to be honest. With the main ingredients for its dog food products having little to no actual meal added, I’m not sure how Alpo can claim to be so pro-meat, as it claims in its mission statement.
It, in fact, seems to be just the opposite. It’s all about meat flavoring rather than real meat. It relies on some rendered meat fat and meat and bone meal to bring the flavor and packs it full of corn, soybean, and corn gluten for its protein.
Pros
I hate not having much to say in the way of positives for a dog food brand, but Purina Alpo dog food leaves me little choice.
One of the only things I can say is that its price makes it affordable for dog owners without a high budget. However, you can’t really put a price on the health of your four-legged family member, so even its price doesn’t hold a lot of weight, in my opinion.
Also, it does contain the required amount of essential nutrients your dog needs, as detailed by the AAFCO, like crude protein and crude fat.
Purina Alpo has been around a long time and its one of the most well-known brands. Perhaps some dogs have had a good experience with its food and have gone on to live long, healthy lives. The website lists tons of 5-star reviews, so obviously there are dog owners who love it.
Cons
But, I don’t fully trust these reviews. It seems to me that Alpo is only showing 5-star reviews on its website, rather than showing a more balanced and accurate picture with all of its reviews, good or bad.
With so many negative reviews of this product that say much of the same complaints, I have very little trust in Alpo to provide dogs with the meat-filled, balanced meals that it claims to keep a dog happy and healthy.
Although it meets AAFCO requirements for its nutrients, its ingredients are ones I simply can’tget past, especially for its dry food that has almost everything but real meat included.
Even its wet food contains little of the meats it claims. For example, Alpo Gravy Cravers Roast Beef Flavor in Gravy contains more poultry than beef. When Alpo decides to start advertising its products for what they actually contain, I’d be more inclined to have some trust in the brand.
You would be better off checking out Nutrisca dog food by Dogswell, a well-balanced diet full of meat, vegetables, and fruits without all the protein-fillers.
Alpo Dog Food Reviews of Ingredients
The Guaranteed Analysis for Purina Alpo Prime Cuts Savory Beef Flavor is:
- Crude Protein (min) 18%
- Crude Fat (min) 19%
- Crude Fiber (max) 4%
- Moisture (max) 10%
- Linoleic Acid (min): 1.0%
- Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C) (min): 85 mg/kg
- Phosphorus (min): 0.8%
- Iron (min): 80.0 mg/kg
Is Alpo a good dog food based on its nutrients? Looking at just the nutrients, my answer is yes. Alpo has a solid list of guaranteed nutrients within its Prime Cuts Savory Beef Flavor dog food.
But, my answer would change based on the actual ingredient list. The AAFCO indicates that 95% of the dog food must contain the named ingredient, in this case, beef.
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However, looking at its ingredient label, I see the following as its first several ingredients: Ground yellow corn, meat and bone meal, soybean meal, beef tallow preserved with mixed-tocopherols, and corn gluten meal.
The only “beef” I even see in this list is beef tallow, which is basically a rendered beef fat. No beef of any real substance, plus a lot of corn and soybean. I assume Alpo gets away with saying “beef” because it actually uses the term “beef flavor” instead of just “beef”. The flavor probably comes from the beef tallow, but there is definitely very little beef, if any, in this food.
With the main proteins being corn, soybean, and meat and bone meal, your dog could be missing out on very important proteins from animal meat, and that worries me with this food.
Alpo Dog Food Recall History
There is no history of an Alpo dog food recall within the past two years, according to the FDA.
Final Thoughts
Purina Alpo dog food leaves me nothing but disappointed. I’m actually concerned that a dog food brand can sell dog food like this. The ingredients simply don’t match the mission of the Alpo brand, which claims to lay its focus on the meat that dogs crave.
But, if the ingredients were healthy for a dog, I could somewhat get past this. The reviews speak for themselves, though. Dog owners claim their dogs are getting extremely sick, or even dying, from Purina Alpo dog food. One of the biggest complaints is vomiting and runny stool from eating this food consistently.
This is not something you want to feed your dog. Spend a little extra money for high-quality ingredients like Instinct Dog Foods that are good for your dog’s diet and stay away from this filler-packed food.