Home / Dog food / Fromm / Four-Star Highlander Beef, Oats, 'n Barley® Recipe Dry Dog Food
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Fromm Four-Star Highlander Beef, Oats, 'n Barley® Recipe Dry Dog Food
A formulated-to-meet, beef-first dry food that's cheaper per calorie than 17% of the dry foods we've priced and denser than 50% (you feed fewer cups) — $2.94 a day for your 40-lb adult dog.
THE FACTS, ONE SENTENCE — data as JSON · reference dog 40 lb · updated 2026-10-19
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 2026-10-19
Composition — dry-matter basis
why dry matter
Calories & cost — for your 40-lb adult dog
Cost per 1,000 kcal: $2.98 — cheaper than 17% of the 360 dry foods we've priced (median $1.93). Serving math uses standard veterinary energy formulas — see the formula.
Standards & ingredients
what this means
why unknown
Safety
Source: official label source (official)· price: Amazon, 2026-10-19 · 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.
The source material
The full ingredient list
Every flag above is computed from this list. Why order is by pre-cooking weight, and how splitting bends it →
Beef, beef broth, lamb meal, haddock, whole oats, dried egg product, whole barley, oatmeal, potatoes, pearled barley, pumpkin, dried tomato pomace, chicken fat (preserved with mixed tocopherols), beef liver, sweet potatoes, salmon oil (preserved with mixed tocopherols), chicken, cheese, chicken liver, flaxseed, celery, carrots, apples, broccoli, potassium chloride, Vitamins [choline chloride, Vitamin E supplement, ascorbic acid, calcium carbonate, riboflavin supplement, niacin supplement, calcium pantothenate, Vitamin A supplement, Vitamin D3 supplement, pyridoxine hydrochloride, biotin, Vitamin B12 supplement, thiamine mononitrate, folic acid], chicory root extract, salt, Minerals [zinc sulfate, manganese sulfate, ferrous sulfate, magnesium sulfate, zinc proteinate, ferrous proteinate, manganese proteinate, copper sulfate, magnesium proteinate, copper proteinate, calcium iodate], sorbic acid (preservative), cranberries, yucca schidigera extract, taurine, blueberries, sodium selenite, dried Lactobacillus paracasei fermentation product, dried Lactobacillus reuteri fermentation product, dried Lactobacillus acidophilus fermentation product, dried Lactobacillus plantarum fermentation product
9 ingredients in this list are ones we hold sourced evidence on , and 1 of them is genuinely contested rather than merely unpopular online.
- Potato · ingredient 9ContestedA starchy tuber used as the carbohydrate base in many grain-free foods (it is a vegetable, not a cereal grain). The FDA's open 2018 investigation into diet-associated canine DCM listed potatoes 'in various forms' as main ingredients of interest alongside pulses such as peas and lentils.
- Named Meat/Poultry Meal (e.g., Chicken Meal, Lamb Meal) · ingredient 3Well supportedA rendered, water- and fat-reduced concentrate from a named species (AAFCO, e.g., 'chicken meal'). Because most moisture is removed it is a dense protein source (poultry meals commonly around 57-69% crude protein) and it names the species for allergy avoidance.
- Mixed tocopherols (natural vitamin E) · ingredient 13Well supportedA blend of vitamin E forms (alpha-, beta-, gamma-, delta-tocopherol) used as a natural-source antioxidant to slow fat rancidity, commonly chosen as an alternative to synthetic preservatives. EFSA concluded that tocopherol-rich extracts are safe for all animal species and the consumer and are efficacious antioxidants in feed.
- Sweet potato · ingredient 15NeutralA starchy root used as a carbohydrate source and a source of fiber and beta-carotene in grain-free foods (a vegetable, not a cereal grain). The FDA's 2018 DCM investigation grouped 'potatoes (including sweet potatoes)' within its ingredients of interest, but the reported cases were dominated by pulses and white potato, and evidence isolating sweet potato specifically is limited.
- Flaxseed (ALA omega-3) · ingredient 20NeutralA plant source of the short-chain omega-3 ALA. Dogs convert ALA to the long-chain omega-3s inefficiently: a controlled feeding study (Dunbar 2010) found flaxseed raised serum EPA but produced no measurable DHA.
- Prebiotics (chicory root / inulin, FOS) · ingredient 27NeutralFermentable fibers (chicory-derived inulin and fructooligosaccharides) that feed colonic bacteria and are readily fermented to short-chain fatty acids in dogs. Feeding studies show they shift fecal microbiota composition and are well tolerated at typical inclusion levels, but clear health benefits beyond compositional change are not yet established.
Nutritional twins
Cheaper close matches
Verified foods with a closely matching label at a meaningfully lower cost per 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 five 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.
Fromm states directly that it does not contract manufacture; all production occurs at company-owned Wisconsin facilities.
source →Dr. Danielle Opetz, PhD in Nutritional Sciences (with an MS in Animal Science, companion animal nutrition emphasis), holds a named leadership role on Fromm's R&D/nutrition team. She is a PhD nutritionist, not a stated ACVN/ECVCN board-certified veterinary diplomate — no board certification was found in this source.
source →No feeding-trial AAFCO statement found on the 123 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.
covers: ingredient testing, pathogen (bacteriology) testing of finished product; same page says canned foods are incubated and all products are held until quality checks are complete. Fromm brand-wide FAQ.
source →PubMed lists no animal or pet paper with Fromm Family Foods in an author address. Not proof no research exists — only that none is indexed under that company name.
source →Full company scorecard, sources, and every SKU we've verified for this brand: Fromm brand page →