Chicken Soup for the Soul Dog Food: Review

Chicken Soup for the Soul was originally a media brand founded in the early ’90s by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen, as a way to share motivational anecdotes with people across the world. After producing a series of bestselling books, Chicken Soup for the Soul expanded into seminars, podcasts, and educational materials, before entering the pet food market.

Chicken Soup for the Soul’s pet products are manufactured by Diamond Pet Foods, a much larger national brand that owns four state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities. Diamond has an average reputation when it comes to ingredient sourcing and quality control, and is known to have used imported ingredients in the past, which are often more vulnerable to contamination (see the ‘Recalls’ section below). 

While this means that Chicken Soup for the Soul definitely isn’t a premium dog food option, the majority of their product range did receive a recent ingredients overhaul, with all of the meat used in the brand’s recipes now certified hormone and antibiotic-free. Recipes are also formulated to AAFCO standards and given the ok by a third-party nutritionist.

The first 4 ingredients of this recipe are all quality meats. They are filled with glucosamine and chondroitin to aid joint health, as well as omega fatty acids and L-carnitine. With all of these things your dog will be mobile, have a shiny coat, great skin, and tons of energy to burn! With prebiotics in the form of chicory root, this food will smoothly move through your dog’s digestive tract.

With no wheat, corn, or soy this product is a great all-rounder. It is slightly lower in protein and fat than the average dry food, but it makes up for this with the quality of meats/ingredients.

Customer reviews:

“My two mini pins both like the food. They are in the kitchen 15 min early ready to eat.”

“All my dogs thrive on Chicken Soup for the Soul dry food. They are now on Mature to adjust to their natural changes. Highly recommend.”

Guaranteed analysis:

• Protein (min): 23.0%
• Fat (min): 12.0%
• Fiber (max): 5.0%
• Moisture (max): 10.0%

Nutritional Info
Ingredients: Chicken, Turkey, Chicken Meal (Natural Source Of Glucosamine And Chondroitin Sulfate), Turkey Meal, Cracked Pearled Barley, Whole Grain Brown Rice, Peas, Oatmeal, White Rice, Faba Beans, Millet, Pea Starch, Chicken Fat (Preserved With Mixed Tocopherols), Ground Flaxseed, Natural Flavor, Tomato Pomace, Duck, Salmon, Salt, Calcium Carbonate, Potassium Chloride, Choline Chloride, Glucosamine Hydrochloride, Dried Chicory Root, Dried Kelp, Carrots, Apples, Tomatoes, Blueberries, Spinach, Cranberries, Rosemary Extract, Parsley Flakes, Mixed Tocopherols (Preservative), Citric Acid (Preservative), Zinc Proteinate, Zinc Oxide, Vitamin E Supplement, Yucca Schidigera Extract, Ferrous Sulfate, L-Carnitine, Manganous Oxide, Manganese Proteinate, Copper Sulfate, Vitamin A Supplement, D-Calcium Pantothenate, Niacin Supplement, Sodium Selenite, Copper Proteinate, Riboflavin Supplement, Dried Lactobacillus Acidophilus Fermentation Product, Dried Lactobacillus Casei Fermentation Product, Dried Lactobacillus Plantarum Fermentation Product, Dried Enterococcus Faecium Fermentation Product, Thiamine Mononitrate, Calcium Iodate, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Vitamin D3 Supplement, Cobalt Carbonate, Folic Acid, Biotin, Vitamin B12 Supplement.

Caloric Content

3,523 kcal/kg, 360 kcal/cup

Real chicken is the first ingredient of this wet cat food, so we’re off to a good start. And it only gets better, with it being blended with turkey, duck, and salmon. It’s essentially the most disgusting smoothie a human could think of, and the most delicious your dog will ever taste!

There are no by-products, wheat, corn, or soy in this recipe. It is well above the industry average for wet foods in terms of protein, with 10% protein, which is 15% higher than other leading competitors. So if you are looking for a high protein wet food for your pup, made with great sources of meat, then you’ve found it.

Customer reviews:

“Finally, a cat food all 4 cats eat without any issues. And a cat food that stayed the same price so autoship was finally a no-hassle deal. Then, the manufactory raised the price, good-bye chicken soup cat food. Bummer, the combination was great. Now it’s back to looking for another good low coast food.”

“Jasmine loves this pate cat food. She eats it every morning.”

Guaranteed analysis: 

• Protein (min): 10.0%
• Fat (min): 5.5%
• Fiber (max): 1.0%
• Moisture (max): 78.0%

Nutritional Info
Ingredients: Chicken, Chicken Liver, Chicken Broth, Turkey Broth, Salmon, Turkey, Duck, Dried Egg Product, Whole Grain Brown Rice, Flaxseed, Oatmeal, Carrots, Peas, Potassium Chloride, Salt, Cassia Gum, Xanthan Gum, Taurine, Apples, Cranberries, Dried Kelp, Vitamins (Thiamine Mononitrate, Vitamin E Supplement, Niacin Supplement, D-Calcium Pantothenate, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Riboflavin Supplement, Vitamin A Supplement, Biotin, Vitamin D3 Supplement, Vitamin B12 Supplement, Folic Acid), Inulin, Minerals (Ferrous Sulfate, Zinc Oxide, Copper Proteinate, Potassium Iodide, Manganese Sulfate, Sodium Selenite), Yucca Schidigera Extract, Choline Chloride Parsley.

Caloric Content

1,244 kcal/kg, 194 kcal/can

Chicken Soup for the Soul offers a large range of both dry and wet food products, with the nutritional profiles of both types mostly meeting or exceeding industry averages. Taken together, the brand’s dry foods have a ratio of 2:1 proteins to fats, which promotes optimal digestion and body maintenance. We love how, even in their dry products, the brand uses a variety of whole meats, supplemented with named-meat meals and fats.

Chicken Soup for the Soul dry food also contains above-average fiber content thanks to ingredients like flaxseed and whole grain brown rice.

When it comes to their wet foods, Chicken Soup for the Soul meets the gold standard of having all-meat products as their primary ingredients. By packing their recipes with chicken, turkey, duck, broths, and organ meat, they’re able to match most competitors in terms of nutritional benefit, coming in just below average for protein and fiber content, and above average in terms of fats.

When checking nutritional profiles, it’s always worth considering the quality of ingredients alongside the levels of different food groups. Here, we like how Chicken Soup for the Soul mainly avoids using larger amounts of meals or fillers, instead opting for more complex carbohydrates like rice, carrots, and oatmeal.

According to our research and the FDA’s Recalls & Withdrawals database, Chicken Soup for the Soul has not issued any recent recalls for their dog food products, which is a great sign of recent production quality improvements.

However, the brand was one of a large number involved in the widespread 2007 melamine recall, caused by contaminants in imported vegetable proteins that unfortunately killed a significant number of dogs and cats. Again, in 2012, the entire Chicken Soup for the Soul range was recalled for potential salmonella contamination in a single batch.