Providore Chicken & Venison Review – The Best Cat Food Reviews (2023)

Last Updated on April 2, 2024 by Indy the Cat

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History

Providore is another made in New Zealand brand that has emerged in the past few years in the pet food space. Founded in 2019, their initial product was dog food before quickly expanding into cat food. If you dig a bit, you’ll find that Providore appears to be Petbarn’s in house product to capitalize on the recent cat food trends. There’s no mention of this on Petbarn’s or Providore’s websites and the only visible link now is that it is an exclusive product of Petbarn/Cityfarmers. Since my contact with them, this has been confirmed as a brand sitting within the Petbarn family.

With that said, even with its short history, Providore has clearly learned a lot from those that paved the way for premium cat food, in particular those in the air dried cat food area. It’s not hard to see their inspirations. From the shape of their food, to the ingredient breakdown and the way its marketed, Providore takes clear aim at market leader Ziwi Peak in many facets. We covered the Ziwi Peaks Air Dried Chicken recipe if you are interested in a comparison.

All of Providore’s recipes are focused on a 93% meat composition, with no fillers, grains, gluten or dairy. In addition, all their meat/protein ingredients are sourced from New Zealand, which has some of the highest industry standards in the world. We’ll dig further into the ingredients in the product commentary below.

Recalls

To date, Providore cat food has not been recalled. In Australia, pet food recalls are only mandatory for brands that have decided to work within the Australian Standard for Manufacturing and Marketing of Pet Food (Standard AS5812:2017). All members of the Pet Food Industry Association of Australia comply with these standards and at the time of publishing, Providore is not a member of the Association. Petbarn however is a marketing member, but Providore operates under a different company so would not necessarily fall under its membership.

Product Line Commentary

Today, we are looking at the Providore Air Dried Chicken and Venison recipe, which is one of the four cat food formulas offered by Providore. Firstly, air dried food is very different from conventional kibble. While examining the food, you will notice that the texture and shape of the food looks more like small pieces of jerky. In addition, the pieces are also larger, thus you may find your cat has to chew more to digest the food (and is good for their teeth!).

Furthermore, this type of food preserves much of the nutritional value of the proteins compared to traditional kibble. This leads to a denser, richer food that is often seen as a superior choice for cats. This category of food often mimics the benefits of the raw diet, something that is always great to see.

Quality Named Ingredients

This boutique recipe features two main proteins – chicken and venison (both are named so no lower quality meats here!). Being a pricier game meat, venison is often found only in premium cat food brands. At the time that we purchased this bag, the price of all their dry foods were the same so it was a great opportunity to expose Indy to a new protein!

It is worthwhile to mention that the formula also contains no vegetable sourced proteins. Since cats are obligate carnivores, it’s always great to see this species appropriate exclusion.

However, as you go down the ingredient list, you will notice that it is only venison organs that are included in this formula. It’s not as unique as including actual venison meat, but still different from your conventional animals like lamb and chicken. Other notable ingredients include chicken liver (rounding out the organs) and green lipped mussels. Mussels are a luxury ingredient that offer a great source of omega 3’s and can provide natural anti-inflammatory benefits.

Overall it’s great to see all these named ingredients, since they ultimately provide a more rounded nutritional profile. Providore sources all their ingredients from New Zealand farms with a focus on free range and sustainable ingredients. All their dry food flavours are all stages formulas that can be fed to kittens, adults and senior cats and are AAFCO approved.

What we don’t like

So far so good right? Well, we don’t like everything that we see in this product. The food contains glycerins, which serve as a binder and preservative. Like most binding/gelling agents, they are on the more controversial side, especially when some cats appear to react to them. The research may show a bit less clarity in its long term effects so if you have any concerns, you should steer clear of them.

Near the end of the ingredient list, this recipe also includes sunflower oil. Sunflower oil is considered a cheap ingredient and has a lot less nutritional benefit despite how they sell it. The last food that we fed that had this in it was Fussy Cat, and if you’ve read the review, is considered a budget food.

One other thing that isn’t obvious at first glance is that this food is heavy on direct vitamin supplements. Rather than use ingredients containing the appropriate vitamins, they are using plenty of supplements. For believers in holistic foods, this isn’t as ideal.

If you look at the information that Providore presents, they have a nice clean marketing image that presents their quality natural sourcing and New Zealand origins. The details are perhaps a bit more vague, so we do wonder if it is as good as they claim. As they remain a smaller player and their contact page is non functional, it is difficult to get more details. Subsequently, we take what they say with some grain of salt as we don’t think they are in the same league as Feline Natural or Ziwi Peak.

Guaranteed analysis

Crude Protein (min) – 43%

Crude Fat (min) – 26%

Crude Fibre (max) – 2%

Moisture (max) – 15%

EPA & DHA – 0.1%

Dry Matter Basis

Dry matter analysis is not available from Providore, but we reached out to the company for more information. Unfortunately they have responded saying that any additional information is considered intellectual property. This is similar to the response we received for both Leaps and Bounds products we reviewed – Chicken and Duck, and Fish and Mussel and is extremely disappointing.

The breakdown shows it would be considered a well balanced high protein, high fat and very low carbohydrate cat food.

Where to Buy and Cost

Providore is not a brand carried by most online pet retailers. At the time of publishing, it can only be found at two retailers: including: Petbarn and City farmers. As an essentially Petbarn house brand, this makes a lot of sense.

At the time of publishing (the cat food line in particular), appears to be very difficult to source right now. When we purchased my bag in 2022, a 1 kg bag retailed for $55. Given the current situation with inflation, we would expect to see a 1kg bag currently priced at about $60-$65 . That being said, we’ll use price estimates based on the last known price. At $0.055/g, this is considerably cheaper than a bag of ZiwiPeak air dried cat food ($0.07/g). Furthermore, like most air dried cat food, it has above average nutritional density (4.55 kcal/g), and results in better bang for your buck.

Since this is a dry food, we do not feed this everyday. It is feed primarily as a topper to meet Indy’s daily caloric. Roughly, dry food may compose of less than 10% of his total weekly intake. As always, being able to have a premium food in their diet is one of the many benefits of building a rotation diet! You can still feel good about feeding premium food as part of their routine without constantly breaking the bank.

Ingredient List

Chicken, Venison Organs, Chicken Liver, Green Lipped Mussel, Vegetable Glycerin, Yeast Extract, Vitamins & Minerals (Calcium, Choline Chloride, Potassium Chloride, Magnesium, Iron, E, Zinc Oxide, B3, Copper Sulphate, B1, Selenium, A, Manganous Oxide, B5, B2, Calcium Iodate, D3, B6, Biotin, B12, Folic Acid, K), Fish Oil, Sunflower Oil, Brewer’s Yeast, Salt, Inulin, Natural Antioxidant, Taurine

Nutritional Information

Chicken – source of meat protein

Venison Organs – source of meat protein and as an offal, it offers a natural form of essential vitamins/minerals

Chicken Liver – source of organs, offering essential vitamins/minerals

Green Lipped Mussels – source of omega 3’s, anti-inflammatory benefits

Vegetable Glycerin – used as a binder and preservative and has some controversy as an ingredient. Gives the food a more chewy texture

Yeast Extract – primarily for palatability

Calcium – source of calcium

Choline Chloride – source of choline

Potassium Chloride – source of phosphorous

Magnesium – source of magnesium

Iron – source of iron

Vitamin E – source of vitamin E

Zinc Oxide – source of zinc

Vitamin B3 – source of vitamin B3

Copper Sulphate – source of copper

Vitamin B1 – source of vitamin B1

Selenium – listed as Selenium but this is likely to be in the form of Sodium Selenium

Vitamin A – source of vitamin A

Manganous Oxide – source of manganese

Vitamin B5 – source of vitamin B5

Vitamin B2 – source of vitamin B2

Calcium Iodate – source of iodine

Vitamin D3 – source of vitamin D3

Vitamin B6 – source of vitamin B6

Biotin – source of vitamin B7

Vitamin B12 – source of vitamin B12

Folic Acid – source of vitamin B12 and aids in digestion

Vitamin K – source of vitamin K

Fish Oil – source of omega 3’s and other fatty acids

Sunflower Oil – not considered a quality ingredient with good nutritional value. source of fatty acids and some vitamins

Brewer’s Yeast – primarily for palatability and some benefits around digestion

Salt – source of sodium

Inulin – prebiotic that aids with digestion, immune function and nutrition absorption

Natural Antioxidant – helps fight diseases

Taurine – essential amino acid 

Indy’s Review

So does Indy the cat like it? 

Yes, Indy enjoys Providore Air Dried Chicken and Venison food and had no issues with palatability.

As a topper, it was easy to add a little bit to his diet without disrupting his primary diet. Also, the texture and size of the food gives Indy the opportunity to chew and work his teeth. Between air dried and freeze dried fod, Indy does go crazier over freeze dried textures.

This is a great cheaper alternative to some of the other premium brands on the Australian market. If it is in stock, we recommend you give it a try and see if you can add it to your cat’s rotation!

The good

• Extremely high meat content makes this very species appropriate food
• Excellent meat/protein sources with quality named ingredients
• Basically no carbohydrates
• Grain free without similar substitutes 
• Air dried versus traditional kibble processing methods
• Quickly adopted by Indy in terms of palatability 
• Calorie dense (but not as much as some other brands like Ziwi Peak Chicken/Lamb/Beef), so you can feed less while still meeting calorie needs

The bad

• More expensive than traditional kibble
• Still a dry food that can be dehydrating if it is the primary food in the cats’ diet
• Some cheap ingredients while others are tied to controversy
• Heavy on vitamin supplements vs using ingredients that contain the nutrients
• Lack of transparency and information from the brand

Rating 

• Species appropriate (weight 0.3) – 9 / 10
• Ingredients (weight 0.3) – 8 / 10
• Recall Track record (weight 0.2) – 10 / 10
• Price (weight 0.2) – 8 / 10

Average Score – 8.75 / 10

Weighted Score – 8.7 / 10

The Bottom Line: Still a great food that can be an alternative to the more expensive air dried brands, while still offering many of their benefits. Indy the Cat paw of approval!

If you spot an error in this article, please do not hesitate to let us know!