Fancy Feast Cat Food (Wet) Review And Nutritional Analysis

Rating

  • Meat is the first ingredient – 1 Star
  • Uses some unnamed meats – 0 Star
  • Above average protein content – 1 Star
  • Less than 4 controversial ingredients – 0 Star
  • Catological Discretionary Rating – 0 Star

Other than their Purely line, which is pretty good, Fancy Feast wet foods are very similar to each other, and we rate them all poorly.

While they market a variety of different wet foods, they are mostly the same, and none of them stand out enough to rate on their own.

Because we do not recommend any of them, and they all suffer from the same problems, we chose to group them all into this review.

Here’s a few important points:

  • Meat is the first ingredient, but in many cases it is an unnamed meat broth like “fish broth”, “meat broth”, or “poultry broth”
  • There are a lot of fillers used, particularly fillers that boost protein content, but are not biologically appropriate for cats. Things like soy protein concentrate and wheat gluten
  • The macronutrient profiles look reasonable, with about 50% protein, but the ingredients used to get to that number are low quality
  • This product line includes many unnecessary ingredients like added color, “meat by-products”, and wheat gluten

Other than the Purely line, Fancy Feast has 12 wet product lines, which include 80 recipes/flavors all together.

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.

Classic Pate

  • Fancy Feast Classic Pate Liver & Chicken (A)
  • Fancy Feast Classic Pate Salmon (A) 1.5 stars
  • Fancy Feast Classic Pate Whitefish & Tuna (A)
  • Fancy Feast Classic Pate Chicken (A) 1.5 stars
  • Fancy Feast Classic Pate Beef (A) 1.5 stars
  • Fancy Feast Classic Pate Salmon & Shrimp (A) 1.5 stars
  • Fancy Feast Classic Pate Turkey & Giblets (M)
  • Fancy Feast Classic Pate Cod, Sole & Shrimp (A)
  • Fancy Feast Classic Pate Chopped Grill (M)
  • Fancy Feast Classic Pate Seafood (A) 2.5 stars
  • Fancy Feast Classic Pate Beef & Liver (M)
  • Fancy Feast Classic Pate Beef & Chicken (M) 2.5 stars

Gravy Lovers

  • Fancy Feast Gravy Lovers Chicken (M)
  • Fancy Feast Gravy Lovers Ocean Whitefish & Tuna (G, M) 1.5 stars
  • Fancy Feast Gravy Lovers Turkey (M) 1.5 stars
  • Fancy Feast Gravy Lovers Chicken Hearts & Liver (M) 1.5 stars
  • Fancy Feast Gravy Lovers Salmon & Sole (G, M) 1.5 stars
  • Fancy Feast Gravy Lovers Beef (G, M) 1.5 stars
  • Fancy Feast Gravy Lovers Salmon (G, M) 1.5 stars
  • Fancy Feast Gravy Lovers Chicken & Beef (M) 1.5 stars

Kitten

  • Fancy Feast Kitten Turkey (G) 1.5 stars
  • Fancy Feast Kitten Ocean Whitefish (G)

Flaked

  • Fancy Feast Flaked Fish & Shrimp (A) 3 stars
  • Fancy Feast Flaked Tuna (A)
  • Fancy Feast Flaked Chicken & Tuna (A)
  • Fancy Feast Flaked Trout (A)
  • Fancy Feast Flaked Tuna & Mackerel (A)
  • Fancy Feast Flaked Salmon & Ocean Whitefish (A)

Grilled

  • Fancy Feast Grilled Tuna (A)
  • Fancy Feast Grilled Chicken (M)
  • Fancy Feast Grilled Ocean Whitefish & Tuna (A)
  • Fancy Feast Grilled Seafood (A)
  • Fancy Feast Grilled Salmon (A)
  • Fancy Feast Grilled Chicken & Beef (M)
  • Fancy Feast Grilled Turkey (M)
  • Fancy Feast Grilled Liver & Chicken (M)
  • Fancy Feast Grilled Beef (M)
  • Fancy Feast Grilled Turkey & Giblets (M)
  • Fancy Feast Grilled Beef & Liver (M)

Medleys

  • Fancy Feast Medleys Chicken Primavera (M)
  • Fancy Feast Medleys Chicken Fare (M)
  • Fancy Feast Medleys Tuna Florentine (M)
  • Fancy Feast Medleys Salmon Primavera (M)
  • Fancy Feast Medleys Tuna Primavera (M)
  • Fancy Feast Medleys Salmon Florentine (M)
  • Fancy Feast Medleys Tuna Fare (M)
  • Fancy Feast Medleys Chicken Tuscany (M) 1.5 stars
  • Fancy Feast Medleys Salmon Fare (M)
  • Fancy Feast Medleys Turkey Primavera (M)
  • Fancy Feast Medleys Turkey Florentine (M)
  • Fancy Feast Medleys Tuna & Shrimp (M)
  • Fancy Feast Medleys Salmon Tuscany (M)
  • Fancy Feast Medleys Chicken & Tuna (M)
  • Fancy Feast Medleys Whitefish & Shrimp (M)
  • Fancy Feast Medleys Turkey & Chicken (M)
  • Fancy Feast Medleys Turkey fare (M)
  • Fancy Feast Medleys Tuna Tuscany (M)
  • Fancy Feast Medleys Turkey Tuscany (M)

Creamy Delights

  • Fancy Feast Creamy Delights Chicken in A Creamy Sauce (M)
  • Fancy Feast Creamy Delights Tuna in A Creamy Sauce (M)
  • Fancy Feast Creamy Delights Chicken (A) 1.5 stars
  • Fancy Feast Creamy Delights Salmon (A) 1.5 stars

Chunky

  • Fancy Feast Chunky Chicken (A) 1.5 stars
  • Fancy Feast Chunky Turkey (A) 1.5 stars
  • Fancy Feast Chunky Chopped Grill (A) 1.5 stars

Delights With Cheddar

  • Fancy Feast Delights with Cheddar Chicken (G, M)
  • Fancy Feast Delights with Cheddar Tuna (G, M)
  • Fancy Feast Delights with Cheddar Turkey (G, M)
  • Fancy Feast Delights with Cheddar Whitefish (G, M)

Sliced

  • Fancy Feast Sliced Chicken Hearts & Liver (M) 1.5 stars
  • Fancy Feast Sliced Chicken (M) 1.5 stars
  • Fancy Feast Sliced Turkey (M) 1.5 stars
  • Fancy Feast Sliced Beef (A) 1.5 stars

Marinated Morsels

  • Fancy Feast Marinated Morsels Chicken (A) 1.5 stars
  • Fancy Feast Marinated Morsels Salmon (A) 1.5 stars
  • Fancy Feast Marinated Morsels Tuna (A) 1.5 stars
  • Fancy Feast Marinated Morsels Turkey (M) 1.5 stars
  • Fancy Feast Marinated Morsels Beef (A) 1.5 stars

Roasted

  • Fancy Feast Roasted Turkey (M) 1.5 stars
  • Fancy Feast Roasted Chicken (A) 1.5 stars
fancy feast gravy lovers wet cat food can

Fancy Feast Gravy Lovers Turkey Feast was selected to represent the other products in the line for this review.

Fancy Feast Gravy Lovers Turkey Feast

Wet Cat Food

Estimated Nutrient Content
ProteinFatCarbs
Guaranteed Analysis9%2%NA
Dry Matter Basis50%11%14%
Calorie Weighted Basis55%30%15%

Estimated Dry Matter Nutrient Content

Protein

50%

Fat

11%

Carbs

14%

Fiber (guaranteed analysis)

1.5%

Calories/100g

79

Is real, named meat the first ingredient?

No

Ingredients

Poultry Broth, Turkey, LiverWheat GlutenMeat By-Products, Chicken, Corn Starch-Modified, Artificial and Natural Flavors, Soy Flour, Salt, Calcium Phosphate, Potassium Chloride, Natural Roasted Turkey Flavor, Taurine, Added Color, Choline Chloride, Magnesium Sulfate, Thiamine Mononitrate, Vitamin E Supplement, Zinc Sulfate, Ferrous Sulfate, Niacin, Calcium Pantothenate, Vitamin A Supplement, Copper Sulfate, Menadione Sodium Bisulfite Complex (Source of Vitamin K Activity), Manganese Sulfate, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Riboflavin Supplement, Vitamin B-12 Supplement, Biotin, Folic Acid, Vitamin D-3 Supplement, Potassium Iodide

Ingredients in red are controversial or of questionable quality.

Ingredient Breakdown

The first ingredient in this cat food is poultry broth. Bad.

Any animal product that is not fully named (i.e., chicken, turkey, or beef), is considered low quality.

It may be chicken, but it might be turkey or any other kind of poultry.

If the company isn’t willing to tell you exactly what’s in the food, can you really trust that it’s the right ingredient for your cat?

If it were a named meat, this could be a good ingredient, as it may contain vitamins and minerals that packaging with water wouldn’t. 

The second ingredient is turkey. Good.

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

It’s also important to note that turkey 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 third ingredient is liver. Bad.

Normally, liver is a fantastic ingredient. 

It provides protein and a lot of important nutrients.

However, the meat source is not specified, and so we are left to wonder where exactly this liver comes from. 

Not all animal meat is created equally when it comes to your cat’s diet, so you really want to know more about each ingredient than we are getting here.

The fourth ingredient is wheat gluten. Bad.

According to Wikipedia, wheat gluten is “made by washing wheat flour dough with water until all the starch granules have been removed, leaving the sticky insoluble gluten as an elastic mass which is then cooked before being eaten.”

It’s a popular ingredient in a vegan diet, because you can use it to make a high-protein, meat-like food called seitan. 

As an ingredient in a cat food, though, it misses the mark. 

It is used to boost the crude protein numbers, without having to add more meat (meat is expensive for manufacturers). 

It comes from a grain, and cats don’t eat grains in the wild. We believe this is not an appropriate ingredient.

Check out TruthAboutPetFood.com for more info on the subject.

The fifth ingredient is meat by-products. Bad.

Whether you consider the use of by-products as a good use of otherwise wasted animal matter, or you consider it a cheap, poor quality ingredient, there’s no arguing with the fact that an unnamed animal product is bad news.

According to AAFCO, meat by-products are “non-rendered, clean parts, other than meat, derived from slaughtered mammals. Includes, but not limited to lungs, spleen, kidneys, Brain, livers, blood, bone, partially defatted low temperature fatty tissue, and stomachs and intestines freed of their contents. It does not include hair, horns, teeth, and hoofs.”

Basically what this means is that anything left over on the carcass once the good, human-grade cuts of meat are removed, is thrown into a vat and processed. 

Since it just says meat and not chicken or beef, you have no idea what’s in it.

The rules surrounding ingredient labeling on pet food allow for less than ideal animals to be used in pet food.

It is possible for these rendering plants to use “4-D” animals…Dead (from means other than slaughter), diseased, dying, or disabled.

This is a low quality ingredient.

The sixth 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 seventh ingredient is corn starch. Bad.

Corn is not biologically appropriate, and most if not all corn ingredients are cheap fillers.

Corn starch may be used to bind other ingredients in the food together, and contains pretty much only carbohydrates. It can be allergenic. 

Low quality ingredient.

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. 

However, there are still a few things you should know.

Soy flour is included. Soy is a bad ingredient for cats, particularly soy manufactured in factories in the US, where soy bean protein is used to create other products, compared to Asia, where soy is typically fermented, which makes it much better for the body.

Soy flour is basically a by-by-by-product of soy beans. From the bean to soy protein meal to flakes to toasted and ground down soy flour.

Soy contains many anti-nutrients that inhibits your cat’s body from digesting nutrients from the other foods she eats.

It also has added color. The type of color used is not mentioned, so it could be anything from food coloring to caramel.

There is no reason for a cat food to be colored, except to make it appeal to cat parents. Your cat does not care what color her food is.

Since it is 100% marketing gimmick, it is unnecessary, and usually the sign of a cheap cat food.

Many coloring options, such as caramel, are potential carcinogens, or otherwise potentially harmful for your cat.

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 Fancy Feast Wet Cat Food

From top to bottom, this is a below average wet product.

Meat is the first ingredient, but many of the first ingredients are non-specific meat broths, so you don’t actually know what the food is made from.

It includes non-specific meat by-products and a whole host of undesirable fillers, from corn to soy to wheat gluten.

This is a good example of why you must look at both the ingredient list and the macronutrient profile before selecting a food.

The macronutrient profile looks reasonable with 50% protein. Carbs are a bit high and fat is a bit low, but otherwise it looks decent.

The macronutrient profile looks like that, though because of low quality cuts of meat, combined with wheat gluten and other protein-rich, non-meat additives. 

This is NOT a good example of a wet food to feed your cat.

Since the formulas do contain some meat, but are otherwise packed with biologically inappropriate fillers, we can assume that this is a mix of a meat- and plant-based food. But remember, we are not sure where much of the meat comes from.

To review, on a dry matter basis, this food is 50% protein, 11% fat, and 14% carbs.

As a group, the brand has an average protein content of 54%, and average fat content of 13%, and an average carb content of 11%.

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

  • Above average protein.
  • Below average fat.
  • Average carbs.

Because the formula contains meat, and the protein count is high, but the food is full of inappropriate fillers and protein-boosters, our rating for this brand is 2 stars.

Not recommended.

Fancy Feast’s 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 Fancy Feast brand in the past:

  • We could not find evidence of any Fancy Feast recalls, though Purina, the parent company, has had multiple over the years

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 Fancy Feast Dry 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. 

Not Convinced?

Check out our ratings and reviews of the best cat foods in our comprehensive, data-backed guide right here.

Emily Parker

Emily Parker is the Content Manager at Catological. She's passionate about helping cat parents love their cats better by providing the best information and recommendations about everything you'll need to know about your cat, from kitten to senior years. She believes natural, biologically-appropriate products are best...why wouldn't you provide the best for a member of your family?!

2 thoughts on “Fancy Feast Cat Food (Wet) Review And Nutritional Analysis”

  1. Hi, I was wondering if you would be doing a review of the Fancy Feast Gourmet Naturals Wet food? (I saw the poor reviews of the two dry foods). These products don’t have much for reviews, but seem low in everything except moisture (even low or don’t have any carbs).

    • Hi Elizabeth – We definitely will be doing a review on that food, but just haven’t got around to posting it yet.

      After looking at the food, I’d likely give it a 3 or 3.5 out of 5. It’s definitely not bad!

      The protein is fair, though not as high as we’d like to see…although since there are no fillers or additives I am not sure how the carbohydrate level is so high (12% on a Dry Matter basis). I’d say it’s likely that protein is actually higher than the 41% I’m showing in my calculations, since it’s really just meat, vitamins, and minerals.

      What I don’t love is that they include “liver” as an ingredient. This is technically an unnamed meat ingredient, which means it could be the liver of anything. We like more transparency in ingredient labeling, so we’ve docked them a point for that.

      So all signs point to it being a fairly good food, actually. Hope that helps!

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