Home / Cat food / Instinct / Original Kibble Real Salmon Recipe

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Original Kibble Real Salmon Recipe

Dry food · adult cats

A salmon-first dry food from Instinct. Cat-food pricing isn't in our corpus for this SKU yet, so cost-per-day isn't shown — the composition numbers below are fully verified.

THE FACTS, ONE SENTENCE — data as JSON · reference cat 10 lb · updated 2026-07-12

$22.39 · 5 lb as of 2026-07-12 Check price →
Your catupdates every number on this page
10 lb

Joint, kidney, dental or heart concerns? Labels can't honestly answer those — that's vet territory. Why we don't checkmark them →

The evidence

The Verified Label

Every food on this site gets this exact panel — same fields, same order, sourced from the official label — so brands finally become comparable. Dots show where this food sits among all 283 dry cat foods we've verified.

Verified LabelThe standardized pet-food panel
VPFD № INSTIN
verified 2026-07-12

Composition — dry-matter basis

why dry matter
Moisture hides the real recipe: dry food is ~5-10% water, wet food ~75-82%. Removing water puts every food on one scale, so these are the only nutrition numbers that can be compared across foods. As-fed label values shown small.
Protein 46.2%label: 42% min higher than 89% of dry cat foods
Fat 19.8%label: 18% min no corpus anchor for fat yet
Fiber 3.3%label: 3% max lower than 89% of dry cat foods
Est. carbohydrates ash not disclosed → 8% assumed, so this is an estimate ≈22%diabetic-check target <10% lower than 85% of dry cat foods
Magnesium as fed: not yet verified
why 0.12% DM
A commonly cited veterinary target for helping manage struvite-crystal (urinary) risk in cats is magnesium under roughly 0.12% on a dry-matter basis. This is a general, label-checkable guideline — not a diagnosis, and not a substitute for your vet, especially for cats with a history of urinary issues.
 Not yet verifiedmagnesium no threshold to check — magnesium not in our verified record
Ash 8% assumed — not disclosed on label 8%as used in carb estimate no corpus anchor for ash yet

Calories & cost — for your 10-lb adult cat

Calorie density Not yet verifiedkcal/kg no corpus anchor for this value
Daily serving—
Cost per day—
5-lb bag lasts—

Cost per 1,000 kcal not available yet — this cat food isn't price-matched to a retail listing in our corpus yet. Serving math uses standard veterinary energy formulas — see the formula.

Standards & ingredients

AAFCO statement
what this means
Two kinds of AAFCO claims exist. Most foods are only "formulated to meet" nutrient profiles — a paper calculation. A smaller set carry the stronger claim: fed to real cats in AAFCO-procedure trials ("Animal feeding tests using AAFCO procedures substantiate…").
 Not yet verified from label
First five ingredients (by pre-cooking weight)Salmon · Menhaden Fish Meal · White Fish Meal · Peas · Herring Meal
Named animal protein first; named meals onlyYes
Legumes in first 10 (FDA DCM inquiry)1 (peas)
BHA / BHT preservativesNone on label
Carrageenan (thickener)None
Ethoxyquin
why unknown
When a fish-meal supplier adds ethoxyquin, U.S. rules don't require it on the finished label — so no label can prove its absence for recipes containing fish meal. We report this as a gap rather than guessing.
 Can't be determined from label

Safety

FDA recalls — Instinct, since 2023None on record
ManufacturerNot confirmed from label
Label transparency 7 of 15 standard fields
Green = verified favorable · amber = gap in the record · red = verified unfavorable · gray = not disclosed / neutral fact.
Source: official label source (official) · anchors: 283 verified dry cat foods · how to read this label

The fit

For your cat, specifically

Checked for a 10-lb adult cat with urinary health + a low-carb goal — the same published criteria our finder uses. Change your cat above and these update.

·
Life-stage coverage not disclosedNo AAFCO nutrient-adequacy statement was found on the label for this SKU, so we cannot confirm adult-maintenance coverage.
·
Urinary fit — can't assessMagnesium is not disclosed on this label, so the urinary/struvite check cannot be run — most cat food labels omit it entirely (only a small share of the cat foods we've verified disclose magnesium at all).
·
Fiber 3.3% DMNot selected as a concern for your cat — shown here for reference.
·
Sensitive stomachNot selected for your cat — but shown here for reference.
·
Chicken-free recipeNot selected for your cat — but relevant if chicken sensitivity ever comes up.
✕
Too many estimated carbs for a low-carb target≈22% carbohydrate (dry-matter, estimated) is over the ~10% DM target some vets use for diabetic/low-carb cats. Estimate only — not a lab measurement. See lower-carb options →

The source material

The full ingredient list

Every flag on the Verified Label is computed from this list. Ingredients are ordered by pre-cooking weight — the first five carry the most information.

Salmon, Menhaden Fish Meal, White Fish Meal, Peas, Herring Meal, Canola Oil (preserved with Mixed Tocopherols and Citric Acid), Tapioca, Salmon Meal, Natural Flavor, Dehydrated Alfalfa Meal, Salt, Montmorillonite Clay, Carrots, Apples, Cranberries, Vitamins (L-Ascorbyl-2-Polyphosphate, Vitamin E Supplement, Menadione Sodium Bisulfite Complex, Niacin Supplement, Vitamin A Supplement, Thiamine Mononitrate, d-Calcium Pantothenate, Riboflavin Supplement, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Vitamin B12 Supplement, Folic Acid, Vitamin D3 Supplement, Biotin), Minerals (Zinc Proteinate, Iron Proteinate, Copper Proteinate, Manganese Proteinate, Sodium Selenite, Ethylenediamine Dihydriodide), Choline Chloride, Taurine, Freeze Dried Cod, Dried Bacillus coagulans Fermentation Product, Rosemary Extract

Wet ingredients like fresh salmon shrink once cooked — which is why named meals appearing high on the list matter: they keep meaningful animal protein after moisture is removed.

Nutritional twins

Priced close matches

This food has no verified price yet — these are the closest label matches that do.

Taste of the Wild Rocky Mountain Feline Recipe
46.7% protein (DM)$1.68 / 1,000 kcal
Purina Pro Plan Pro Plan Sensitive Skin & Stomach Lamb & Rice Formula Cat Food
45.5% protein (DM)$2.44 / 1,000 kcal
Purina Pro Plan Pro Plan LiveClear Sensitive Skin & Stomach Turkey & Oat Meal Formula Cat Food
45.5% protein (DM)$3.60 / 1,000 kcal

Label-composition matches only: same species, form, and growth stage; same primary protein where both are known; grain-free preserved; protein within 4 points and fat within 4 points, and estimated carbs within 8 points, on a dry-matter basis. Not a medical or quality recommendation.

The maker

Who makes this — and how they back it up

The four questions the WSAVA nutrition guidelines tell you to ask a pet-food company. Every answer is sourced or marked as an undisclosed gap — never guessed. This is the "is it made competently?" axis that star-rating sites skip.

Owns its manufacturing Owns its plants

Site states Instinct makes food in 'our own facilities' (company-operated plants in Lincoln, Nebraska). Source language specifically covers raw production and does not address whether any dry/canned lines use co-packers, so not classified 'mixed.'

source →
Employs a qualified nutritionist Yes — sourced

Vets page names Dr. Susan Wynn, DVM, DACVIM (Nutrition) — a board-certified veterinary nutritionist — and refers to 'our on staff Board Certified Veterinary Nutritionist.' DACVIM (Nutrition) is the ACVN-equivalent board certification.

source →
AAFCO feeding trials Undisclosed

No feeding-trial AAFCO statement found on the 46 labels we’ve verified for this brand, and no company-wide claim was found either. Most pet foods are only "formulated to meet" AAFCO profiles (a paper calculation) rather than fed to real animals in trials — this is common, not necessarily a red flag.

Peer-reviewed research Unmeasurable

Count of PubMed-indexed records with the entity in an author affiliation (animal/pet-domain filtered). A reproducible FLOOR, not a total: affiliation strings vary and some research is published under institute names. research_entity_affiliation is recorded only for manufacturers with a dedicated pet-nutrition research arm; brand_affiliation.count is null where the brand name is an ambiguous homonym.

Parent company Agrolimen ↗ Founded 2002 ↗ Headquarters / plant St. Louis, Missouri, USA ↗ FDA recalls on record None on record

Full company scorecard, sources, and every SKU we've verified for this brand: Instinct brand page →