BFF Grain Free Cat Food (Wet) Review And Nutritional Analysis

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Rating

Meat is the first ingredient – 1 Star
Uses some unnamed meats – 1 Star
Above average protein content – 1 Star
Less than 4 controversial ingredients – 1 Star
Catological Discretionary Rating – 0.5 Star

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Here’s a few important points to consider for this particular line:

Basically just meat, vitamins and minerals
Most recipes include a single filler ingredient, and usually one or two thickening agents
Very high in protein, but some recipes should have more fat
The only problem is that each recipe contains fish, and we do not recommend feeding a diet solely of fish-based food

The BF Grain Free product line includes 20 wet recipes/flavors.

14 recipes are in cans, and 6 are in pouches.

The only difference is that the pouches typically use tapioca as a thickener, whereas the cans use the more controversial carrageenan, and typically have one or two more thickening agents.

Each recipe below includes its related AAFCO nutrient profile when available on the product’s official webpage or packaging: Growth (G), Maintenance (M), All Life Stages (A), Supplemental (S) or Unspecified (U).

The star rating is a rough average of all of the flavors in a single line of food. If an individual recipe scored lower or higher, we will mark that below, next to the flavor.

BFF Grain Free Pouch Tuna Chicken was selected to represent the other products in the line for this review.

BFF Grain Free Pouch Tuna Chicken

Wet Cat Food

Estimated Nutrient Content

	Protein	Fat	Carbs
Guaranteed Analysis	9%	1%	NA
Dry Matter Basis	60%	7%	7%
Calorie Weighted Basis	72%	20%	8%

Estimated Dry Matter Nutrient Content

Protein

60%

Fat

Carbs

Fiber (guaranteed analysis)

Calories/100g

Is real, named meat the first ingredient?

Yes

Ingredients

Tuna Broth, Tuna, Chicken, Ground Tapioca, Sunflower Oil, Guar Gum, Calcium Sulfate, Tricalcium Phosphate, Vitamin E Supplement, Niacin Supplement, Thiamine Mononitrate (Vitamin B1), Vitamin A Supplement, Vitamin B12 Supplement, Calcium Pantothenate, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride (Vitamin B6), Riboflavin Supplement (Vitamin B2), Biotin Supplement, Vitamin D3 Supplement, Folic Acid, Menadione Sodium Bisulfite Complex (Source of Vitamin K), Ferrous Sulfate, Zinc Oxide, Manganese Sulfate, Copper Sulfate, Sodium Selenite, Potassium Iodide, Taurine.

Ingredients in red are controversial or of questionable quality.

Ingredient Breakdown

The first ingredient in this cat food is tuna broth. OK, but with reservations.

Instead of using water for processing, tuna broth is added for moisture.

Broth may contain vitamins and nutrients from the original animal (tuna, in this case), that water would lack.

This is usually a sign of a high quality food.

However, we don’t believe cats should eat much fish.

Fish can be allergens to cats, fish may contains toxins from polluted water, and few cats in the wild eat fish.

The second ingredient is tuna. OK, but with reservations.

Cats may love tuna, but tuna is not the best choice for your kitty.

While it is a good, lean protein that contains healthy fatty acids, it is higher in mercury than most other fish.

The mercury in tuna may be more likely to affect your cat than it would a human, since cats are likely to ingest more on a bodyweight to food ratio.

While a little treat now and then likely won’t hurt, there’s no reason to feed your cat tuna as it’s main protein source, when chicken or rabbit options are plentiful.

Cats may also have allergies to fish.

The third ingredient is chicken. Good.

While quality of the individual ingredient can vary, chicken is a very good protein source for cats.

It’s also important to note that chicken contains about 70% water, so when it is processed and cooked for use in cat food, it will become a smaller part of the total recipe.

The fourth ingredient is ground tapioca. OK, but with reservations.

Used in many grain-free recipes as a starch to bind the food together.

While it’s not very nutritional and doesn’t compare well to grains in some cases, there’s likely not enough of it to cause any digestive issues for your cat.

The fifth ingredient is sunflower oil. Good.

This is a decent source of fat for energy and potentially for a healthy coat.

The sixth ingredient is guar gum. OK, but with reservations.

Guar gum comes from guar beans, and is a thickening agent.

In small quantities, like those in cat food, it should be a harmless ingredient.

However, some research has shown that including guar gum in a commercial cat food “had a significant negative effect on apparent protein digestibility in many of the cats and tended to depress apparent fat and energy digestibilities.”

While not heavily substantiated beyond this study, it might mean your cat needs to eat more protein to make up for the lower digestibility.

This recipe includes a number of other ingredients, but once you get down this far, none of them will be in large enough quantities to make a real difference, except for the added vitamins and minerals.

To read a more in depth article about any of the ingredients listed here, check out our Cat Food Ingredient Wiki (currently under development).

The Catological Verdict on BFF Grain Free Wet Cat Food

From top to bottom, this is an above average wet product.

Meat is the first ingredient, and there are almost no fillers. However, the recipes rely on fish, which we do not support feeding to cats as their main food source.

It does contain extra vitamins and minerals.

Overall, this is a good example of a wet food to feed your cat, but the fish recipes should not make up the majority of your kitty’s diet.

Due to there being almost nothing in here but fish and meat, vitamins, and minerals, we can safely say this is a meat-based cat food.

To review, on a dry matter basis, this food is 60% protein, 7% fat, and 7% carbs.

As a group, the brand has an average protein content of 64%, and average fat content of 14%, and an average carb content of 2%.

Compared to the other 2000+ foods in our database, this line of food has:

Above average protein.
Average fat.
Below average carbs.

Because it mostly meat, with minimal fillers, but is too reliant on fish in some cases, our average rating for this brand is 4.5 stars.

Recommended, but not as the only source of food for your cat.

BFF Cat Food Recall History

We do not believe that a recall indicates a low quality food or company, and we respect the fact that sometimes things happen that cause a manufacturer to recall a food.

Usually these things are non-life-threatening, and we think it’s important to take a moment to be thankful about just how few recalls there really are in the industry, considering the enormous volume of food produced.

However, we do believe that a history of recalls may point to a larger issue with a company, and that discerning consumers want to know who they’re buying from, especially when it comes to something as important as the food you feed your beloved cat.

Here is a list of recalls that have affected the BFF brand in the past:

May 2017 – Potentially making cats ill – Australian recipes affected

If you want to stay up to date on the latest recall information affecting your cat’s food, sign up to our email list and receive an email every time a recall is announced. We’ll also let you know about any updated ratings, recipe changes, or new cat foods on the market. (Our alert system will be launched shortly, check back soon.)

Where To Buy BFF Cat Food

We recommend purchasing your pet products from Chewy.com. They continually prove that they walk the walk while talking the talk, and I’ve never dealt with a more dedicated pet-parent base of people than those who work at Chewy.

Plus, they offer 20% off and free shipping on lots of orders.