Home / Dog food / The Farmer's Dog vs Ollie
The Farmer's Dog vs Ollie
Both are quiz-gated fresh subscriptions built around whole-food recipes, and both are legitimate choices — this isn't a "one is secretly bad" comparison. The differences that actually matter are how much of the label you can verify yourself, whether the AAFCO claim is confirmed or just described in reviews, and what you'll really pay once you're past the "starting at" price.
The verdict
Choose Ollie if you want a brand that publishes its own guaranteed analysis and AAFCO statement on an official page you can check yourself — that's the biggest checkable difference we found. Choose The Farmer's Dog if its official "starting at about $2/day" price transparency and one extra year of consumer track record matter more to you than being able to independently verify the label. Either way: your real quiz price will very likely land well above that starting figure — see the cost math below before you commit.
At a glance
The four things that actually differ
Not "which tastes better" — the four checkable facts that separate these two brands.
Cost
The Farmer's Dog publishes an official starting price (~$2/day). Ollie publishes none — fully quiz-gated.
Recipe variety
Ollie ships 5 named-protein recipes to The Farmer's Dog's 4 — lamb is Ollie-only in our data.
AAFCO substantiation
Ollie's statement is verbatim-confirmed, including a large-breed-growth claim. The Farmer's Dog's statement isn't found on any public source we could check.
Data transparency
Ollie's label figures are official (captured from ollie.com). The Farmer's Dog's come from secondary label-transcription sites — the company doesn't publish them itself.
The evidence
Side by side: chicken recipe vs chicken recipe
Comparing each brand's Chicken recipe — the one named protein both currently publish — so this is the fairest single-recipe pair in the lineup, not a cherry-picked one. Fresh food is high-moisture, so composition is shown on a dry-matter basis, same as every product page on this site.
| Metric | The Farmer's Dog — Chicken Recipe | Ollie — Fresh Chicken |
|---|---|---|
| Source quality | Secondary The Farmer's Dog doesn't publish label data on its own site — it's gated behind the signup quiz, so these figures come from third-party label-transcription sources instead | Official Captured directly from ollie.com/ingredients |
| Calorie density | 1300 kcal/kg | 1298 kcal/kg 313 kcal/cup |
| Protein dry-matter basis | 46% DM label: 11.5% min, as-fed | 30.8% DM label: 8% min, as-fed |
| Fat dry-matter basis | 34% DM label: 8.5% min, as-fed | 11.5% DM label: 3% min, as-fed |
| Fiber dry-matter basis | 6% DM | 7.7% DM |
| Est. carbohydrates dry-matter basis | Not reliably computable | ≈19.2% |
| AAFCO statement | Not found on label Reviews describe it informally as "complete and balanced for all life stages" — no verbatim quote available | Formulated to meet · All Life Stages Includes large-breed-growth qualifier (verbatim, official) |
| First five ingredients | USDA Chicken, Brussels Sprout, USDA Chicken Liver, Bok Choy, Broccoli | Chicken, Rice, Carrots, Chicken Livers, Peas |
| Legumes in first 10 FDA DCM inquiry | None | 1 (peas) |
| Named protein first | Yes | Yes |
| FDA recalls since 2023 | None on record | None on record |
| Label transparency of 15 standard fields | 6 of 15 | 7 of 15 |
Why "not reliably computable" instead of a number?
Fresh food labels list minimum protein/fat against a maximum moisture — at very high moisture (The Farmer's Dog's label states 75% max), that arithmetic can go negative once an assumed ash value is subtracted, which is a known limitation of computing from guaranteed minimums, not a real negative carbohydrate value. We show the gap honestly rather than force a number. See methodology for the full formula.The money question
What it actually costs
Both brands calculate your exact price through a signup quiz keyed to your dog's weight, age, activity level and recipe choice — neither publishes a fixed price table. Here's what each has confirmed officially.
The Farmer's Dog
"Starts at about $2/day"
Quoted directly from the brand's official FAQ. First-order promos have rotated between 50% and 20% off across our extraction sessions — treat any specific discount as a snapshot, not a fixed offer.
See how that compares to kibble, and what larger dogs tend to actually pay →
Ollie
No published baseline
Ollie's official pages carry rotating first-box promo percentages (we've seen 50% and 70% off across sessions) but no fixed per-day or per-weight price figure anywhere we could find. Full price only appears after the quiz.
Compare to a same-weight dog's kibble cost on our calculator →
Decision routing
Where owners land
Three common starting points, and which fact from above actually settles it.
"I want to verify the label myself"
Go with Ollie. It's the only one of the two whose guaranteed analysis and AAFCO statement we could pull from an official page rather than a secondary source.
"I want the lowest possible starting price"
The Farmer's Dog publishes the only official floor of the two (~$2/day) — though neither brand's real, weight-adjusted price is confirmable until you run the quiz.
"I'm not sure fresh is worth the premium at all"
Start with the honest cost math against kibble before comparing these two brands to each other.
Next step
Run the quiz for your dog
Neither brand's exact price is confirmable without your dog's specifics — both quizzes take a few minutes.
The Farmer's Dog
Official quiz — enter your dog's weight, age, breed and activity level for an exact price.
Check current pricing at The Farmer's Dog →We may earn a commission on this link in the future — it never changes the facts on this page. No affiliate relationship is currently active.
Ollie
Official quiz — enter your dog's weight, age, breed and activity level for an exact price.
Check current pricing at Ollie →We may earn a commission on this link in the future — it never changes the facts on this page. No affiliate relationship is currently active.
Common questions
Farmer's Dog vs Ollie, honestly answered
Is The Farmer's Dog or Ollie better?
Neither is a clear winner — both publish an AAFCO life-stage claim of some kind and both show zero FDA recalls on record since 2023 for the recipes we've checked. The real difference is verifiability: Ollie publishes its guaranteed analysis and AAFCO statement on an official page we captured directly, while The Farmer's Dog gates that data behind its signup quiz, so our figures for it come from secondary label-transcription sources and carry that caveat.
Which is cheaper, The Farmer's Dog or Ollie?
We can't give a single confirmed number for either — both are quiz-gated by your dog's weight, age, activity level and recipe choice. The Farmer's Dog is the more price-transparent of the two: its official FAQ states plans start at about $2 a day. Ollie has published no baseline figure on any official page we've found. See our full cost-vs-kibble math for what real owners tend to actually pay.
Are The Farmer's Dog and Ollie approved for puppies or large-breed puppies?
Ollie's Fresh Chicken recipe carries a verbatim AAFCO statement covering "All Life Stages, including growth of large size Dogs (>70 pounds or more as an adult)" — the strongest all-ages claim a label can make. We could not locate a verbatim AAFCO statement for The Farmer's Dog on any public source; reviews describe it only informally, which is not the same as an independently confirmed label claim.
Do either of these use human-grade ingredients?
Both brands market a "human-grade" positioning, and both recipes we captured lead with a named whole-food protein and no unnamed by-products — that part is checkable from the ingredient list. Whether the finished product meets the USDA's specific "human-grade" manufacturing definition is a facility/process claim we cannot verify from a label, so we don't score it either way.
Which brand has more recipe variety?
In our dataset, Ollie publishes 5 fresh recipes (beef, chicken, turkey, lamb, pork) to The Farmer's Dog's 4 (chicken, beef, turkey, pork) — lamb is the one named protein only Ollie offers here.