Ol’ Roy Dog Food Review (Canned)

Ol’ Roy Canned product range consists of 12 recipes, each receiving the Dog Food Advisor’s rating of 2 stars.

This wet dog food is available as stew cuts in gravy or a savoury meat loaf, offering a good source of hydration for dogs. Unfortunately, it contains several lower-quality ingredients such as corn, meat by-products, and added colour. We would prefer to see ingredients with higher nutritional value.

The table below shows each recipe in this range including our rating and the AAFCO nutrient profile: Growth (puppy), Maintenance (adult), All Life Stages, Supplemental or Unspecified.

Recipe and Label Analysis

Ol’ Roy Filet Mignon Flavor Meaty Loaf was selected to represent the other products in the line for this review.

Ingredients Analysis

The first ingredient in this dog food is water, which adds nothing but moisture to this food. Water is a routine finding in most canned dog foods.

The second ingredient is chicken by-products, what’s left of a slaughtered chicken after all the choice cuts have been removed.

In addition to organs, this item can also include feet, beaks, undeveloped eggs and almost anything other than prime skeletal muscle.

The quality of this ingredient can vary, depending on the caliber of the raw materials obtained by the manufacturer.

The third ingredient is chicken. Chicken is considered “the clean combination of flesh and skin… derived from the parts or whole carcasses of chicken”.¹

Chicken is naturally rich in the 10 essential amino acids required by a dog to sustain life.

The fourth ingredient includes meat by-products, an item made from slaughterhouse waste. This is what’s left of slaughtered animals after all the prime striated muscle cuts have been removed.

With the exception of hair, horns, teeth and hooves, this item can include almost any other part of the animal.²

What’s worse, this particular item is anonymous. So, the meat itself can come from any combination of cattle, pigs, sheep or goats – which can make identifying specific food allergies impossible.

Although most meat by-products can be nutritious, we do not consider such vaguely described (generic) ingredients to be as high in quality as those derived from a named animal source.

The fifth ingredient is animal liver. This is an organ meat sourced from a named animal and thus considered a beneficial component.

The sixth ingredient is beef. Beef is defined as “the clean flesh derived from slaughtered cattle” and includes skeletal muscle or the muscle tissues of the tongue, diaphragm, heart or esophagus.³

Beef is naturally rich in all 10 essential amino acids required by a dog to sustain life.

The seventh ingredient is brewer’s rice, a by-product of rice milling for human consumption, which is also used for brewing beer. It consists of the small fragments of rice left over after milling whole rice. Like whole rice, its main contribution is as an energy source within a diet.

The fiber contributed by brewer’s rice is less than from whole grain rice. We highlight brewer’s rice as a controversial ingredient, as some pet owners prefer to avoid brewer’s rice and consider it a low quality ingredient used by pet food companies to reduce their recipe costs. Whilst we agree that whole grains are preferable, brewer’s rice is a safe ingredient utilising a source of carbohydrates which sustainably doesn’t compete with human food.

A study comparing brewer’s rice to other carbohydrate sources noted that the digestibility of brewer’s rice was greatest of the ingredients studied, and the immediate post-prandial (or immediately after meal) blood sugar and insulin responses were greatest for brewer’s rice. This indicates that brewer’s rice caused a sudden peak in blood sugar, and then insulin to manage that.

If your dog is susceptible to diabetes or fizzy behaviour this is not a preferable carbohydrate source. Similarly for weight loss, satiety diets, or requirements for slow release energy brewer’s rice as a carbohydrate source is not ideal. If you are looking to provide instant energy with your dog’s food however, this may be an ideal choice.

From here, the list goes on to include a number of other items.

But to be realistic, ingredients located this far down the list (other than nutritional supplements) are not likely to affect the overall rating of this product.

With two notable exceptions…

First, we’re disappointed to find artificial coloring in any pet food. That’s because coloring is used to make the product more appealing to humans – not your dog. After all, do you really think your dog cares what color his food is?

And also, the minerals listed here do not appear to be chelated. And that can make them more difficult to absorb. Non-chelated minerals are usually associated with lower quality dog foods.

Nutrient Analysis

Judging by its ingredients alone, Ol’ Roy Filet Mignon Flavor Meaty Loaf looks like a below-average wet product.

But ingredient quality by itself cannot tell the whole story. We still need to estimate the product’s meat content before determining a final rating.

The dashboard displays a dry matter protein reading of 36.5%, a fat level of 26.9% and estimated carbohydrates of about 26.9%.

As a group, the brand features an average protein content of 41.4% and a mean fat level of 21.4%. Together, these figures suggest a carbohydrate content of 26.2% for the overall product line.

And a fat-to-protein ratio of about 53%.

Near-average protein. Below-average fat. And above-average carbs when compared to a typical canned dog food.

Ol' Roy Dog Food Recall History

The following automated list (if present) includes all dog food recalls related to Ol' Roy through April 2026.

You can view a complete list of all dog food recalls since 2009 here.

Our Rating of Ol' Roy Dog Food

Ol’ Roy is a grain-inclusive canned dog food using a notable amount of named and unnamed meat by-products as its dominant sources of animal protein, thus earning the brand 2 stars.

Not Recommended

About

Ol’ Roy is a Walmart owned brand.

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