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IAMS™ PUPPY LARGE BREED package official product image via Amazon

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IAMS™ PUPPY LARGE BREED

Dry food · puppy dogs

A chicken-first dry food that's cheaper per calorie than 98% of the dry foods we've priced and denser than 41% (you feed fewer cups) — $0.69 a day for your 40-lb adult dog.

THE FACTS, ONE SENTENCE — data as JSON · reference dog 40 lb · updated 2026-10-19

$35.24 · 30.6 lb $0.69/day as of 2026-10-19 Check price →
Tell us about your dogevery number on this page updates live ↓
40 lb
For a 40-lb adult: 2½ cupsper day $0.69per day 51 daysbag lasts passes 1 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 № IAMS-P
verified 2026-10-19

Composition — dry-matter basis

why dry matter
Kibble is ~10% water, canned food ~78%, so as-fed numbers are on two different scales. As-fed values shown small. How the conversion works →
Protein 31.1%label: 28% min typical — the median dry food is 30%
Fat 15.6%label: 14% min typical — the median dry food is 16.7%
Fiber 4.4%label: 4% max lower than 69% of dry foods
Est. carbohydrates ash not disclosed → 8% assumed, so this is an estimate ≈40%computed anchor available once more brands disclose ash
Calcium / Phosphorus extended guarantees: Ca 1.2% · P 0.9% · DHA 0.1% · Ω-3 0.5% 1.33 : 1ratio, as fed within the AAFCO adult range (1:1 – 2:1)

Calories & cost — for your 40-lb adult dog

Calorie density 378 kcal/cup3633 kcal/kg typical — the median dry food is 388 (median 388) — you feed more cups
Daily serving2½ cups
Cost per day$0.69
30.6-lb bag lasts51 days

Cost per 1,000 kcal: $0.70 — cheaper than 98% of the 360 dry foods we've priced (median $1.93). Serving math uses standard veterinary energy formulas — see the formula.

Standards & ingredients

AAFCO statement
what this means
Two claims exist: formulated to meet a profile, or fed to real dogs in an AAFCO trial. Which is stronger, and how rare it is →
Not yet verified from label
First five ingredients (by pre-cooking weight)Chicken · Ground Whole Grain Corn · Chicken By-Product Meal (source of Glucosamine and Chondroitin Sulfate) · Ground Whole Grain Sorghum · Dried Plain Beet Pulp
Named animal protein first; named meals onlyYes
Legumes in first 10 (FDA DCM inquiry)1 (soybean meal)
BHA / BHT preservativesNone on label
Carrageenan (thickener)None
Ethoxyquin
why unknown
A preservative added by a fish-meal supplier need not appear on the finished label, so no label can prove its absence. Why we show gaps →
None — no fish meal in this recipe

Safety

FDA recalls — Iams, since 2023None on record
ManufacturerNot confirmed from label
Label transparency 11 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)· 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.

·
Life-stage coverage not disclosedNo AAFCO nutrient-adequacy statement was found on the label for this SKU, so we cannot confirm adult-maintenance coverage.
✓
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 above is computed from this list. Why order is by pre-cooking weight, and how splitting bends it →

Chicken, Ground Whole Grain Corn, Chicken By-Product Meal (source of Glucosamine and Chondroitin Sulfate), Ground Whole Grain Sorghum, Dried Plain Beet Pulp, Brewers Rice, Soybean Meal, Natural Flavor, Corn Gluten Meal, Fish Oil (preserved with Mixed Tocopherols), Dried Egg Product, Caramel Color, Dicalcium Phosphate, Salt, Carrots, Choline Chloride, Potassium Chloride, Fructooligosaccharides, Vitamins (Vitamin E Supplement, Ascorbic Acid, D-Calcium Pantothenate, Biotin, Thiamine Mononitrate (Vitamin B1), Vitamin B12 Supplement, Vitamin A Supplement, Niacin, Riboflavin Supplement (Vitamin B2), Pyridoxine Hydrochloride (Vitamin B6), Vitamin D3 Supplement, Folic Acid), Minerals (Ferrous Sulfate, Zinc Oxide, Sodium Selenite, Manganese Sulfate, Copper Sulfate, Potassium Iodide, Manganous Oxide), Mixed Tocopherols (preservative), Citric Acid (preservative), Rosemary Extract

7 ingredients in this list are ones we hold sourced evidence on , and none of them is contested in the veterinary literature.

  • Beet Pulp · ingredient 5Well supportedThe fibrous material left after sugar is extracted from sugar beets, included as a moderately fermentable fiber source (commonly around 5 to 7.5% of the diet). Controlled feeding studies show it supports firm, good-quality stools and short-chain fatty acid production without impairing overall nutrient digestibility, so the 'cheap filler' characterization is not supported by the evidence.
  • Mixed tocopherols (natural vitamin E) · ingredient 10Well 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.
  • Rosemary extract · ingredient 23Well supportedA plant-derived natural antioxidant (active compounds carnosic acid and carnosol) used to slow fat oxidation, frequently chosen as an alternative to synthetic preservatives. It is an authorized food antioxidant in the EU (E 392); JECFA established a temporary acceptable daily intake for rosemary extract expressed as carnosic acid plus carnosol.
  • By-Product Meal (Meat / Poultry By-Product Meal) · ingredient 3NeutralA rendered concentrate made from clean, non-muscle parts of the carcass (organs, necks, feet, and similar), defined by AAFCO. It is more variable and lower-transparency than a named muscle meal, but it is not inherently unsafe or low-nutrition: controlled feeding trials in dogs report high protein digestibility (roughly 92-95%) for poultry by-product-based diets, and some by-product organs are nutrient-dense.
  • Brewers Rice · ingredient 6NeutralAn AAFCO-defined ingredient consisting of the small, broken fragments of rice kernels separated during milling. It is a digestible carbohydrate and energy source nutritionally similar to other rice; the 'brewers' name reflects how the fragments are sourced, not lower nutritional quality.
  • Corn Gluten Meal · ingredient 9NeutralThe dried protein fraction of corn, used as a concentrated plant protein (roughly 60% protein) rather than a filler. Its amino acids are highly digestible in dogs (reported up to about 95%), though lysine is the first-limiting amino acid, so complete diets balance it with other protein sources.

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.

Owns its manufacturing Owns its plants

Iams is produced at Mars Petcare's owned/operated Mattoon, Illinois plant.

source →
Employs a qualified nutritionist Undisclosed

We could not confirm this from a public source.

source →
AAFCO feeding trials Undisclosed

No feeding-trial AAFCO statement found on the 70 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.

Publishes quality-control testing Not found

no QC process described.

Peer-reviewed research Yes — sourced

666 PubMed papers (animal/pet filtered) list Waltham Petcare Science Institute (Mars Petcare) in an author address; we checked 200 and 200 really name the company. A floor, not a total.

source →
Parent company Mars, Incorporated (Mars Petcare) ↗ Founded 1946 ↗ Headquarters / plant Dayton, Ohio, U.S. (brand origin) ↗ FDA recalls on record 8 on record

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