Meat and Animal Derivatives
meat · base score -1
What is it?
Meat and Animal Derivatives is a meat ingredient. Graded poor: cheap, vague or of questionable value, so it drags a product’s score down.
At a glance
- Category
- meat
- Grade
- poor
- Base score
- -1 (from −1 to 1; higher is better)
- Found in
- 309 products
- Also listed as
- -
Common questions about meat and animal derivatives
Is Meat and Animal Derivatives good for dogs?
We grade it as a poor ingredient: typically cheap, vague or of questionable nutritional value, so it drags a product’s score down. One poor ingredient does not make a food bad on its own, but a recipe built from several usually scores low.
How many UK dog foods contain meat and animal derivatives?
309 UK products list meat and animal derivatives as an ingredient in our database. The full list is shown below, sorted by rating.
How does Open Dog Food grade meat and animal derivatives?
We grade it poor, our lowest grade, used for cheap, vague or low-value ingredients. Every ingredient is converted to its dry-matter share and scored from our glossary before a recipe gets its 1-100 rating; the full method is on our methodology page.
What is the problem with "meat and animal derivatives"?
It is the vaguest meat declaration allowed on a UK label. The phrase covers any warm-blooded land animal and any part of it, and the mix can change batch to batch without the label changing. A named meat (chicken, beef, lamb) tells you exactly what your dog is eating; this phrase tells you almost nothing, so transparency-minded buyers tend to prefer named meats.
Does "meat and animal derivatives" mean the food contains beaks and hooves?
Not necessarily. Derivatives can be decent cuts as well as less glamorous ones; the problem is that the label does not say. The phrase is common in budget foods because it lets manufacturers buy whatever is cheapest each week. We cannot tell you what is inside, and neither can the manufacturer from that label alone, which is the point.
