Leaps & Bounds Chicken and Duck – The Best Cat Food Reviews

Last Updated on April 2, 2024 by Indy the Cat

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History

Leaps and Bounds (hereby referred to as L&B) is the house brand sold exclusively at Petbarn. While Petbarn is likely the name you come cross the most in the pet food space, its company technically falls under Greencross Limited. Greencross itself was originally founded as a veterinary company, which eventually merged with Petbarn in 2014. Their network continues to grow to this day and spans everything from pet shops to grooming and veterinary services.

Despite being technically owned by Petbarn, L&B is a separate brand and company and not manufactured by Petbarn itself. Its product lines span various types of pet food and as you would expect, both wet and dry cat and dog food. The brand has been around for at least 5+ years, but the history of the actual company is unclear.

When we reached out to L&B for more information on the company history, we were told the information is proprietary. Quite odd considering this should be public information that anyone is willing to share. Unfortunately, having a vague about page and not giving answers does not leave a positive first impression. Let’s keep digging.

Recalls

To date, L&B 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, L&B (nor Petbarn / Greencross) is not a member of the Association. 

Product Line Commentary

Today, we are looking at the Leaps & Bounds Chicken Topped with Duck in Gravy recipe. The L&B wet cat food line is quite interesting. Most of their flavours come in two textures (gravy or jelly) and a few of their formulas also come in mousse. It’s quite nice to have a choice of texture given essentially the same base ingredients and macro profile. If you’re looking to expose your cat to different textures, you can essentially do two textures with 1 flavour! The gravy formula has the meat in chunks with plenty of gravy that cats generally love to lick up.

Most of L&B’s wet cat food line is catered to adults except for their kitten formulas. They advertise all their wet foods as a grain free food with 100% real meat.

A simple budget cat food

The main protein here is primarily chicken with duck as the secondary protein. If you ever see food labelled with the word with, it will comprise of a very small percentage of the food (under certain American standards, that is said to be less than 3%). Neither proteins are specific on the type of meat used (e.g. breast, mince etc.). Sometimes this vagueness is used to disguise using any part of the animal (possibly lower quality parts). It’s hard to tell which is the case here.

The total percentage of meat is said to be 90% according to the labelling, but the claim can be seen as confusing. Wet foods are typically 70+% moisture, so is 90% meat meant to be in terms of weight of ingredients? However, as cats are obligate carnivores, it is great that there are no vegetable sourced proteins in this recipe.

The full ingredient list is fairly short, opting not to get into specifics. For example, it lists essential vitamins rather than listing all the vitamins or including ingredients that are the source of specific vitamins. It would have been good to name the gelling agents since some cats may react to specific gelling agents. There have been some studies that suggest that these agents can cause inflammation and other issues, so if you are concerned about it, it’s best avoid these type of vague food labels.

So, are house brands any good?

In terms of the space that they compete in, we would say this house brand is comparable to Fussy Cat. Both have simple, more generic ingredient lists, but L&B is a bit more pricey than the old Fussy Cat formula we previously reviewed.

Now, is it better than other house brands? To our knowledge, there are actually few house brand cat foods in Australia from online pet stores. As far the ingredients go, it’s more difficult to compare without specifics, but it falls comfortably in the budget category as the ingredient list is nothing special.

The packaging on this brand looks high end and sells its positives well, but we wouldn’t judge a product by its marketing. Some of the notable things include its 5% carbohydrate profile and mentioning fish oils used for omega oils. However, the ingredient list identifies them simply as omega oils. The 5% carbohydrate profile is also confusing as it is listed alongside the 90% meat percentage.

Despite this, there are some strong positives such as having no replacement fillers in their ingredients. They mention their product line having “no potatoes, no corn, no soy and no wheat gluten”. In addition, the formula does not include any colouring, flavouring or preservatives.

At 85kcal per 85g (listed as 100kcal per 100g) can, this recipe has an average caloric count compared to typical wet foods in this size range. The breakdown shows it would be considered a balanced moderate protein, moderate fat and very low carbohydrate cat food.

Guaranteed analysis

Crude Protein (min) – 7%

Crude Fat (min) – 3%

Crude Fibre (max) – 0.5%

Dry Matter Basis

Unlike many other pet food brands, L&B does not provide a dry matter basis analysis. Their alternative nutritional profile lists the following: 90% meat, 5% carbohydrates and 5% vitamins, minerals and oils. Note this is not the equivalent to a typical analysis or dry matter basis and does not give a clear picture of the actual nutritional profile.

Where to Buy and Cost

Leaps and Bounds can be found exclusively at Petbarn and Cityfarmers pet stores. While the regular price is $19.99/12 cans ($1.67/can), Petbarn has frequent specials of 40% off that bring it down to less than $1.00/can.

As a cheaper food, this is a reasonable option to add into your cat’s diet in order to make their diet more budget friendly. Being able to have a budget food in their diet is one of the many benefits of building a rotation diet! You can still mix up their diet with cheaper foods, so you provide variety without constantly breaking the bank.

Ingredient List

Chicken, Duck, Chelated Minerals, Omega Oils, Gelling Agents, Essential Vitamins.

Nutritional Information

Chicken – source of meat protein

Duck – source of meat protein

Chelated Minerals – essential minerals

Omega Oils – essential fatty acids

Gelling Agents – undisclosed binding agent

Essential Vitamins – essential vitamins

Indy’s Review

So does Indy the cat like it? 

Yes and No. This one had a mixed reaction with Indy. While he had no issues with palatability and finishing the food. He also experienced some gagging and abnormal burping when he finishes his meals.

It’s difficult to determine the exact cause of the aftereffects, but after experiencing it on multiple occasions, there may be some ingredients that do not sit well with Indy. The effects were not severe, however for that reason, this isn’t on our recommend list.

Note: Your cat may not have any negative reactions similar to Indy.

The good

• Species appropriate food (two meat sources as proteins) with no vegetable source proteins
• Grain free without similar substitutes 
• Quickly adopted by Indy in terms of palatability 
• Budget friendly price with an average caloric count

The bad

• Vague ingredient list provides little insight into the quality and type of ingredients
• Gelling agents listed without specific ingredients
• Indy experienced some minor side effects after eating the food
• Company did not reply to my questions about brand history and seemed disinterested in providing more information

Rating 

• Species appropriate (weight 0.3) – 8 / 10
• Ingredients (weight 0.3) – 5 / 10
• Recall Track record (weight 0.2) – 10 / 10
• Price (weight 0.2) – 8 / 10

Average Score – 7.8 / 10

Weighted Score – 7.5 / 10

The Bottom Line: A budget friendly food that comes in two variations. Potentially worth a try, but not one that Indy is sticking with in the long run due to his side effects.

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