Best Raw Dog Food UK: DAF and Prodog Raw Reviews

Which Is The Best UK Raw Dog Food Company? Review Of DAF (Durham Animal Feeds) and Prodog Raw, Complete With Doggy Taste Tests!

Though I’ve fed my dogs a DIY raw diet in the past, these days I find the ready-made minces far more convenient. Lots of raw dog food suppliers have excellent subscription plans, with a variety of protein options, all conveniently delivered frozen to your home, ready to pop in the freezer.

The freezer aspect is often the downside of feeding your dog ready-made raw minces. Not all of us have plenty of freezer space available. Depending on the size of your dog, or dogs, you might need an entire freezer just for your dog’s food.

However, don’t let this be a stalling point for you – many suppliers are happy to arrange smaller, more regular deliveries to get around the lack of freezer space.

This is a review of 2 different brands of 100% complete 80-10-10 ready mixes – Durham Animal Feeds (DAF) and Prodog Raw. My gorgeous girl Toxa was very happy to do the taste testing!

DAF website

Prodog Raw website

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In case you don’t know what an 80-10-10 mix is, it means 80% meat, 10% offal and 10% bone. The bone is always ground up into small pieces in these mixes. It’s one of the reasons why I now feed a ready-made mix. My girl swallows down whole bones – when I used to feed her a DIY raw diet with whole bones such as chicken necks or wings, I lived in fear of her choking on them.

If you’re looking for a review of Cotswold Raw, Nutriment, or The Dog’s Butcher, look at this article.

THE RESULTS

You can read on for more details, but here is a summary of the results:

I think the quality and service of Prodog Raw is better and their packaging was also better – but with a cautionary note. Read on to see why.

From my dog’s point of view it was a close contest, but she showed a slight preference for DAF.

THE TASTE TESTS

I always try to give my dog more choice in life, and letting her choose what to eat is so simple. In case you’ve never tried it, doing Free Work enrichment at mealtime is an excellent way to introduce choice.

Toxa had previously eaten DAF before this taste test, but the Prodog Raw was new to her.
She usually eats the raw minces from Bella & Duke, as these are the best I’ve found overall, though we often try out different suppliers. If you want to try Bella & Duke, use this code to get 50% off your first order c56173f

We ran the test with 4 different proteins – rabbit, lamb, beef and turkey. Both suppliers had these proteins, so it made the comparison as like-for-like as possible. I gave Toxa some of the same protein from each brand in 2 separate piles. I swapped where I put each brand for each meal so that she had the choice of both foods each time, but in a different position.

She eats her food on lickimats most days, so we did the test using lickimats. Lickimats are fantastic for feeding raw mince to your dog. I recommend the brand LickiMat, they use food-safe rubber, not cheap silicone alternatives. Get lots of other lickimat topping ideas here.

Day 1: Turkey

Toxa didn’t demonstrate a clear preference for either brand. She ate them both up happily, going back and forth from one brand to the other.

The DAF turkey says it also has apple in it, so it’s not a pure 80-10-10 mix.

Winner: neither

Day 2. Rabbit

Toxa started on the DAF. She ate half of it, then left it to go to the Prodog.

She ate all the Prodog before returning to finish the DAF.

Winner: Prodog

Day 3. Lamb

Toxa checked out the Prodog briefly, then went to the DAF and polished it all off before going back to Prodog.

Note: as you can see in the first picture, the DAF pack leaked (I cut the pack open, it didn’t come like that).

Winner: DAF

Day 4. Beef

The Prodog raw beef was one of the tubs that arrived broken. I had to poke around in the meat to fish out the little piece of missing plastic from the tub.

In the first meal of the day, Toxa showed no preference for either brand. For her dinner though she checked out the Prodog briefly, then went to the DAF and polished it all off before going back to Prodog.

Winner: DAF

DAF website

Prodog Raw website

Here’s a quick video of Toxa trying out both brands’ turkey raw food. She went back and forth between them, expressing no preference.

REVIEW OF INGREDIENTS AND OVERALL QUALITY

Some raw food suppliers are very clear about where they source their meat.

In the case of DAF, I couldn’t find any information on their ‘About Us’ or ‘FAQ’ pages about where the meat comes from. They simply state: “all ingredients are ethically sourced”.

ProDog on the other hand states that their recipes are “formulated using only ethically sourced ingredients from … UK only farms“.

ONLINE SHOP AND HOME DELIVERY

I picked up the DAF at my local raw food store but I had to get the Prodog Raw online. DAF does do a delivery service though, and some raw food stores stock Prodog, just not mine.

DAF does not deliver to Northern Ireland or the Scottish Highlands.

Prodog does deliver to those places, but charges a pretty hefty premium to do so.

Both companies have bulk deals, but DAF doesn’t sell the basic range (the one I tested) individually. You need to buy them in boxes of 14 packs. Each pack weighs 454gr.

Prodog does sell the individual packs, enabling you to mix and match different flavours. Their packs are slightly larger at 500gr each.

Here’s a summary of each supplier’s online shop ease of use, and delivery information. Note the delivery costs refer to buying frozen meat products, not the other items in their stores.

DAF website

Prodog Raw website

PACKAGING

DAF PACKAGING

Courier packaging: Since I bought the DAF food at my local store, I didn’t get to see how it was packaged for the courier. According to their website, orders are sent in polystyrene boxes to keep them frozen.

Food packaging: Of the 2 suppliers, DAF had the simplest packaging: a clear film plastic wrap. On their website, DAF state: “To ensure that Durham Animal Feeds customers get the best possible price and value, simple clear, transparent, sealed and fully recyclable (where facilities allow) packaging is used for the products”.

I couldn’t find any information about what the packaging was made of – such as whether it’s made from recycled materials, where it’s produced etc.

Apart from this, there are 2 practical problems with the DAF food packaging.

If you’re portioning up your dog’s food, you’ll need to transfer any remaining food to another container with a lid, or leave it open in your fridge. Once the food defrosts the packaging is very flimsy so if you don’t at least put it on a plate, you’ll possibly end up with a mess on your fridge shelf. Yuk. This is especially the case with the fish proteins that are quite sloppy. (We didn’t include those in this review but believe me, I speak from experience).

However, once defrosted DAF food squishes down pretty well into either Bella & Duke or ProDog Raw containers, so if you’ve already bought from those suppliers you can simply recycle the containers for DAF.

The second problem with DAF packing is that it often leaks. They are definitely improving – when I first used DAF a couple of years ago it ALWAYS leaked – I mean EVERY SINGLE PACK.

For this test 1 in 4 packs leaked. To avoid a disgusting mess dripping down your fridge, make sure you put the pack on a plate or in a container when you put it in the fridge to defrost.

PRODOG RAW PACKAGING

Courier packaging: The order arrived right on time, including a reminder message from the courier that morning. It came in a cardboard box, which as you can see from the photo above, was a little dented on the bottom. Inside the box they use a recyclable wool sheet lining to protect the containers and keep the food cold. The tubs were still frozen.

Prodog are clearly very eco-conscious and this is evident in all the detailed information they give about their packaging – where it is produced, how to recycle it – or upcycle it – and they also have a discount system in place for returning the wool lining.

Unfortunately though, the wool lining doesn’t protect the plastic food containers as well as polystyrene or stiff cardboard packaging. Several of the Prodog plastic food containers were chipped or cracked.

I have regular deliveries of raw food from another supplier, Bella & Duke (B&D). Like Prodog, their food comes in plastic containers. However, B&D send them in strong, double-wall cardboard boxes with a couple of dry ice packs inside. No wool, no polystyrene. I’ve never had a broken plastic container from B&D. (If you’re interested in Bella & Duke, use this code to get 50% off your first order: c56173f)

The B&D plastic containers are exactly the same as Prodogs’ in terms of design. They only differ in colour – Prodog’s are yellow (great for recycling apparently) and B&D’s are white. You can see a white Bella & Duke container that I used to put the DAF food in, to prevent it from leaking all over my fridge.

Food packaging: ProDog Raw had the best packaging from an ease of use point of view. Their lidded, plastic containers, allow you to portion up the food and seal the container again – if they’re not broken that is.

Some of the tubs were dirty on the outside, with blood and bits of food stuck to them.

Summary of the food packaging:

VARIETY OF RANGE BY EACH SUPPLIER

As well as the single protein minces tried in this review, both suppliers also offer other ready-made mince ranges and treats. Neither offer a senior range, but both offer supplements, including products for older dogs. Prodog offers the broadest range of mince products and novel proteins.

PRICING

Durham is cheaper, which makes sense when you consider its simple elaboration and presentation. However, the quality, range and service of Prodog is much better.

When you take into account the free delivery on the Prodog Raw bundles, it’s not that much more expensive than DAF.

CONCLUSION

If you’re really stuck for cash but still want to feed raw, DAF is one of the few options available to you. Here is a cautionary note though – whilst this has never happened to me, and I’ve bought DAF from time to time when I’ve been in a jam, I’ve heard several other pet parents complain that they’ve found small bits of plastic in the DAF dog food.

If you do buy DAF, break it up before feeding just to make sure…

If your budget can stretch to it, Prodog is by far the better economical option. Pricewise, it’s somewhere between the cheapest option (DAF) and the other quality raw food providers on the market. Compared to DAF, Prodog has better quality meat, packaging, information, and product range. It also has a loyalty rewards system and free treats for returning the wool linings to them.

Although my dog marginally favoured the DAF more than the Prodog, this wouldn’t put me off Prodog. I often choose to eat pizza rather than a salad – we don’t always make decisions based on what’s best!

Although I want her to eat the best, I also recognise that choice is important. If she chooses something that I view as lower quality, I’m OK with that so long as it’s not happening all the time.

What do you feed your dog? Have you tried either of these raw food suppliers?

DAF website

Prodog Raw website

BELLA AND DUKE

My go-to supplier for Toxa’s food is Bella and Duke. They are a little more expensive than Prodog, but they’re very careful how and where they source their meat, and they have a great product range for senior dogs, something Prodog doesn’t currently have. They also provide regular information from their vet and canine behaviourist, with lots of free support, especially in the facebook group.

For UK raw dog food, I highly recommend Bella & Duke. This is the brand that my dog eats more than any other, and we test out different UK raw dog food brands regularly.

They have several options suitable for dogs of all ages. They also have options for dogs with specific dietary or health requirements, such as a range for older dogs, low fat blends for dogs with pancreatitis, etc.

Use this code to get it a 50% DISCOUNT off your first order:

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GO TO BELLA & DUKE

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