Solid Gold Dog Food Reviews (Ratings, Recalls, Ingredients!)
About the Company
Sissy McGill founded Solid Gold Health Products for Pets, Inc in 1974, as the first holistic pet food company in the USA. They make natural, holistic pet products for dogs and cats, including dry food, canned food, treats, and supplements.
In 2016, they moved their corporate headquarters from Greenville, South Carolina to west St. Louis County, Missouri to be closer to their supply chain and manufacturing facilities.
Who makes Solid Gold dog food?
That seems to be a difficult question to answer. According to the company website, most Solid Gold pet products are made in the USA, including their dry dog food, cat foods, treats, and supplements. Only the tuna based canned cat food is made in Thailand. The facilities there also make tuna for human consumption, so at least the standards are higher than they might be otherwise. Nothing Solid Gold produces is made in China, including any of the Solid Gold dog food ingredients, according to the company website.
Solid Gold's dog food ingredients are from all over the world. According to the company FAQ, they look for where to get, “the highest quality of ingredients.” When they arrive at their partners' American plants, they check the health and safety everything.
More specific, up-to-date information wasn’t easy to find because Solid Gold only oversees the manufacturing process. As of 2012, Crosswinds Pet Foods in Kansas made many of their products, but some Solid Gold® dry dog foods, like WolfKing, WolfCub, Just a Wee Bit and Hund-n-Flocken were made by Diamond Pet Food in South Carolina and Missouri. Simmons Pet Foods in Arkansas made most of Solid Gold’s canned pet food.
There are more than forty dog products listed on the company website, including dry and wet food, supplements and treats.
Dry Food
This company’s most popular and the best rated dry dog food on Amazon is Solid Gold Grain & Gluten Free Barking at the Moon® With Beef, Eggs & Peas. It's rated with 76 percent of more than 100 reviews giving it five stars. The first two ingredients are Ocean Fish Meal and Beef.
The minimum amount of Crude Protein is great, at 41 percent, with a 20 percent minimum of Crude Fat. With the company's blend of 20 superfoods, there are a lot of natural vitamins, minerals and antioxidants too, as well as added supplements. Another popular dry dog food is Solid Gold Holistique Blendz with Oatmeal, Pearled Barley & Ocean Fish Meal Dry Dog Food, with 5 stars out of 57 reviews on Chewy.
The first few ingredients, however, are Oatmeal, Pearled Barley, Peas, and Ocean Fish Meal. I always want a product that has meat as the first ingredient, not one that has it this far down on the list. The Crude Protein minimum is only 18 percent with 6 percent Crude Fat. This food is meant for less active, overweight dogs or seniors, but I’d still like to see a lot more protein from real meat sources.
Canned Food
Solid Gold’s most popular canned dog food is their Holistic Wet Dog Food. Out of more than 60 reviews on Amazon, 63 percent gave it five stars, and another 17 percent gave it four stars. The beef and the chicken varieties are 95 percent meat, both have a minimum value of 9.5 percent protein and 9 percent fat.
Rating
Is Solid Gold a good dog food?
Some people obviously think so. In 2014, the Whole Dog Journal added Solid Gold to its list of approved dog foods, presenting the company with Whole Foods Magazine’s Natural Choice Award for the best dog food in the Pet Care category. Solid Gold’s new brand expression in 2015 also won the Petfood & Animal Nutrition 2.0 Innovation Award too.
Unfortunately, I have some unanswered about Solid Gold’s pet products. That impacts my review, and while the ingredients are great, the amount of meat and protein varies widely. I don’t know how the food is cooked and prepared either. That’s not really acceptable at this price point, in my opinion.
Pros
A number of Solid Gold’s products, like their dry food formulas, feature their unique blend of 20 nutritious superfoods, including:
- Pumpkins
- Cranberries
- Spearmint
- Carrot
- Apples
- Watercress
- Rosemary
- Almond Oil
- Beets
- Sesame Oil
- Blueberries
- Broccoli
- Thyme
- Chicory Root
- Lentils
- Celery
- Parsley
- Dried Kelp
- Spinach
- Salmon Oil
Solid Gold’s dry dog and cat food also includes both natural prebiotic fibers and probiotics. They work together, protecting the probiotics during cooking to support digestive health and nutrient absorption in our pets.
None of the pet recipes use meat by-product meal, corn, wheat, soy, sugar, artificial preservatives or flavors..
There are a lot of different protein sources used in their pet products too, such as:
- Chicken
- Turkey
- Duck
- Quail
- Lamb
- Bison
- Buffallo
- Beef
- Venison
- Salmon
- Tuna
- Alaskan pollock
- Whitefish
- Shrimp
- Crab
Cons
Not all their formulations are grain-free and/or designed for rotation feeding.
Meat is not always the first and main ingredient, so check the label.
I don't know what companies actually make the different pet products and where, and I found nothing at all about the manufacturing methods. It’s good that most of it is made in the USA, but outsourcing to huge manufactures has definite disadvantages.
I also look for dry pet food that’s extruded and products that are cooked at a lower temperature, so all the nutrients in the original ingredients are preserved. There are a lot of great ingredients in these products, but how they’re prepared makes a big difference. Since it doesn’t say otherwise, I assume these products are mass-produced in large batches, with more processing than I typically look for.
Solid Gold Dog Food Recall History
Solid Gold’s use of manufacturing partners hasn't always been without problems. On May 8, 2012, there was a Solid Gold dog food recall of one batch of WolfCub Large Breed Puppy Food and one of Solid Gold WolfKing Large Breed Adult Dog for possible Salmonella contamination. Both were made at the Diamond pet food plant in Gaston, South Carolina, but another, unrelated 13 different brands made there were also affected, at that time. That's why I prefer smaller companies that actually make their own pet food, instead of outsourcing.
Final Thoughts
Some of these pet products have more meat than others. Their high protein, grain-free dog foods would be my first choice made be Solid Gold. I like all the superfoods too, but I don’t like outsourcing, especially when I don’t know who exactly is making the product or how.
There’s definitely worse dog foods out there. This is a natural product, but, in my opinion, there are better examples of that too for this price, especially when it comes to dry dog food.
Oh my… Wow. Long ago Solid Gold was touted as one of the first all cage-free, pesticide-free and all US raised/made foods. To know that has changed is heartbreaking. Thanx for your hard work here!