Home / Dog food / Acana / Puppy Recipe (Puppy & Junior)

product photo
coming soon
no verified photo yet — never a mockup

Acana · brand facts & recall history →

Puppy Recipe (Puppy & Junior)

Dry food · puppy dogs

A formulated-to-meet, chicken-first dry food that's denser than 70% (you feed fewer cups). Cost-per-day isn't available yet — this SKU isn't price-matched.

THE FACTS, ONE SENTENCE — data as JSON · reference dog 40 lb · updated 2026-07-11

Tell us about your dogevery number on this page updates live ↓
40 lb
For a 40-lb adult: 2½ cupsper day not pricedper day 7 daysbag lasts passes 2 fit checks ↓

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 494 dry foods we've verified.

Verified LabelThe standardized pet-food panel
VPFD № ACANA-
verified 2026-07-11

Composition — dry-matter basis

why dry matter
Moisture hides the real recipe: kibble is ~10% water, canned food ~78%. 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 35.2%label: 31% min higher than 82% of dry foods
Fat 21.6%label: 19% min higher than 95% of dry foods
Fiber 5.7%label: 5% max higher than 71% of dry foods
Est. carbohydrates ash not disclosed → 8% assumed, so this is an estimate ≈28.4%computed anchor available once more brands disclose ash
Calcium / Phosphorus extended guarantees: Ca 1.2% · P 1% · EPA 0.2% · DHA 0.4% · Ω-3 1.3% 1.20 : 1ratio, as fed within the AAFCO adult range (1:1 – 2:1)

Calories & cost — for your 40-lb adult dog

Calorie density 408 kcal/cup3575 kcal/kg denser than 70% of dry foods (median 388) — you feed fewer cups
Daily serving2½ cups
Cost per day—
4.5-lb bag lasts7 days

Cost per 1,000 kcal not available yet — this SKU isn't price-matched to a current retail listing. 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 dogs in AAFCO-procedure trials ("Animal feeding tests using AAFCO procedures substantiate…").
 Formulated to meet · all_life_stages
First five ingredients (by pre-cooking weight)Chicken · turkey · chicken meal · whole green peas · whole red lentils
Named animal protein first; named meals onlyYes
Legumes in first 10 (FDA DCM inquiry)2 (whole green peas, whole red lentils)
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.
 None — no fish meal in this recipe

Safety

FDA recalls — Acana, since 2023None on record
ManufacturerNot confirmed from label
Label transparency 13 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: 494 verified dry dog foods (360 priced) · how to read this label

The fit

For your dog, specifically

Checked for a 40-lb adult with a sensitive stomach — the same published criteria our finder uses. Change your dog above and these update.

✓
Validated for adult dogsAAFCO statement covers adult maintenance.
✓
Passes our sensitive-stomach checksNamed animal protein first, and no unnamed by-products in the ingredient list.
·
Contains chickenNot selected as a concern for your dog — shown here for reference.

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.

Chicken, turkey, chicken meal, whole green peas, whole red lentils, chicken fat, turkey meal, flounder, eggs, fish oil, whole yellow peas, lentil fiber, chicken broth, whole chickpeas, whole green lentils, whole pinto beans, pea starch, natural chicken flavor, chicken liver, chicken heart, salt, vitamin E supplement, dried kelp, zinc proteinate, mixed tocopherols (preservative), whole pumpkin, collard greens, whole apples, whole pears, calcium pantothenate, thiamine mononitrate, freeze-dried chicken, freeze-dried turkey, riboflavin, folic acid, copper proteinate, dried chicory root, turmeric, sarsaparilla root, althea root, rose hips, juniper berries, citric acid (preservative), rosemary extract, dried Lactobacillus acidophilus fermentation product, dried Bifidobacterium animalis fermentation product, dried Lactobacillus casei fermentation product

Nutritional twins

Priced close matches

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

Diamond Puppy
34.4% protein (DM)$0.62 / 1,000 kcal
Diamond Naturals Small & Medium Breed Puppy Chicken & Rice Formula
35.6% protein (DM)$1.07 / 1,000 kcal
Purina Pro Plan Development 30/20 Chicken & Rice Formula Dog Food
34.1% protein (DM)$2.52 / 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

Champion crafts foods in 'our' kitchens; ACANA made in Champion's own facilities in Alberta, Canada and Kentucky, USA.

source →
Employs a qualified nutritionist Yes — sourced

Same Champion About page as Orijen; claims 'Ph.D.-level nutrition experts' on staff. No named individual or specific PhD field given.

source →
AAFCO feeding trials Undisclosed

No feeding-trial AAFCO statement found on the 4 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 None found

A reproducible PubMed search (author-affiliation field, animal/pet-domain filtered) returns zero indexed papers for this brand name. Not proof no research exists — only that none is PubMed-indexed under this exact name.

source →
Parent company Mars, Incorporated (Mars Petcare) ↗ Founded 1985 ↗ Headquarters / plant Alberta, Canada ↗ FDA recalls on record None on record

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