Last Updated on October 16, 2024 by Indy the Cat
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Review Summary
| The Good | The Bad |
| – Budget friendly | – Meat by-products while not necessarily bad may not be the highest quality meat products |
| – Available at a large amount of pet food retailers | – Inclusion of cereal proteins |
| – Lower in calories for cats needing a less caloric rich diet | – Similar to other budget options, this product features a vague ingredient list, particularly when it comes to vitamins, gelling agents, and additives. |
Rating
| Species appropriate (weight 0.3) | 6 |
| Ingredients (weight 0.3) | 6 |
| Recall Track record (weight 0.2) | 10 |
| Price (weight 0.2) | 9 |
| Average Score | 7.8 / 10 |
| Weighted Score | 7.4 / 10 |
The Bottom Line: Budget friendly and readily available at supermarkets. While not the highest quality ingredients, an option to add to the rotation for some cats that are getting a bit tubby.
Where to Buy
| Pet Circle | Petbarn | |
| Latest Price at time of Posting | Buy Now – $29.99 | Buy Now – $30 |
The nice thing about supermarket brands is well… they’re available in the supermarket. In a pinch, you will likely have a Woolworths or a Coles near you to pick up some cat food. Beyond the major supermarket chains, you’ll also find these across quite a few online retailers. Typically priced at $30 for a pack of 12 pouches, this comes to approximately $2/pouch.
Although each pouch is still 85g of food (a standard size), the lower calorie count of 42kcal/pouch will make this a very light meal for most cats. We recommend feeding this alongside a more calorie dense food to ensure your cat is meeting its caloric needs.
History
The Optimum Pet Food brand previously endorsed by celebrity Veterinarian Dr. Chris Brown and now Dr. Cherlene Lee is focused on “cat food powered by science”. More specifically they refer to it as “WALTHAM™ Science and focuses on complete nutrition centered around lifestyle, life stage and breed size. In a nut shell, this may not mean much since other major brands such as Royal Canin and Hill’s Science also follow a similar philosophy.
The most important piece of company history comes from the fact that they are owned by Mars Petcare. As noted in our Royal Canin Indoor cat food review, Mars are big players in the pet food space, despite being known as a food company. Mars carefully positions its brands and Optimum happily fits in as a brand you can easily find in your neighbourhood supermarket.
Recalls
To date, Optimum Pet 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 Optimum Pet Food is considered a member of the Association under the parent company Mars Petcare Australia.
Product Line Commentary
Supermarket Cat Food: Is It Better Than You Think?
What is supermarket cat food?
Supermarket cat food is a slang term for cheap (and sometimes questionable) cat food found in your everyday supermarkets. Despite the inclusion of well-known brands, they often carries a poor reputation.
But as we know, it all comes down to what’s inside that counts.
The core ingredients are meat by products followed by cereal protein. Let’s start with the meat products first.
When humans think of meat by products, they think of all the parts of the animals that they would never want to eat. Hooves anybody?
Fortunately, it’s not quite like that. Meat by products includes parts of the animal other than meat and includes but is not limited to the liver, kidneys, heart, bones, blood etc. of animals. It does not include hair, horns, nor hooves. Under AAFCO standards, these must be suitable for use in animal food.
That’s not bad at all. Similar to the raw diet, some of the best cat food that we have reviewed include specific organs/offal. The difference is that by products can have a wide range of sourcing for their products which often includes cheaper and lower quality options. All in all though, that’s not too shabby.
But what about the rest?
Cereal proteins appear next on the ingredient list. This one raises some red flags. While these ingredients may offer some protein, they’re typically derived from grains like corn, wheat, rice, or barley. Often considered fillers and offering lower-quality protein, this isn’t ideal for cats. Since the specific grains aren’t named, if your cat has grain sensitivities, you should be wary of feeding this product.
The remaining ingredients are fairly standard and expected for this type of food, including generic additions like flavoring, vitamins and minerals, gelling agents, and essential nutrients such as taurine. Similar to our comment on grains, if your cat has sensitivities to specific gumming agents, you may prefer to find a food that has named gelling agents.
Overall, this Optimum product line falls somewhere in the middle of the pack for supermarket food. With other brands like Dine, Fussy Cat and Felix, as popular choices for the budget conscious, the competition is fierce in this space. They all offer similar products and price can become a major factor in choosing one over the other.
At 42 kcal per can (or 50kcal per 100g), this cat food is definitely a calorie light food for felines. It is rated as a complete food and the breakdown shows that it would be considered a moderate protein, low fat, and (likely) moderate to high carbohydrate cat food. No dry analysis or further nutrition profiles are provided by Optimum Pet Foods.
Guaranteed analysis
Crude Protein (min) – 7%
Crude Fat (min) – 1.5%
Ingredient List
Meat by-products & Meat (including Chicken, Sheep &/or Beef); Cereal Protein; Flavour; Minerals & Vitamins; Gelling Agents; Antioxidants; Taurine; Colouring Agents.
Nutritional Information
Meat by-products & Meat – source of protein. meat by-products tend to come with a negative reputation but are not necessarily deserving of such bad press (see product line commentary for details)
Cereal Protein – source of protein and carbohydrates
Flavour – vague flavour additive
Minerals & Vitamins – source of minerals and vitamins (supplements)
Gelling Agents – gelling agents for consistency (likely common ones like guar gum(
Antioxidants – source of antioxidants
Taurine – essential amino acid
Colouring Agents – colour (still looks brown like most cat food though!)
Indy’s Review
So does Indy the cat like it?
While it isn’t the highest quality of food, you know what they say about unhealthy food, cats (like humans), seem to gravitate towards it. This is definitely one of those situations!
We only feed this on occasion when we see a deal, but Indy never leaves a drop on his plate when this is on the menu If that’s not his stamp of approval, I don’t know what is!
If you spot an error in this article, please do not hesitate to let us know!
