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Orijen Regional Red package official product image via Amazon

Orijen · brand facts & recall history →

Regional Red

Dry food · all dogs

A formulated-to-meet, beef-first dry food that's cheaper per calorie than 15% of the dry foods we've priced and denser than 92% (you feed fewer cups) — $3.11 a day for your 40-lb adult dog.

THE FACTS, ONE SENTENCE — data as JSON · reference dog 40 lb · updated 2026-07-12

$129.99 · 23.5 lb $3.11/day as of 2026-07-12 Check price →
Tell us about your dogevery number on this page updates live ↓
40 lb
For a 40-lb adult: 2¼ cupsper day $3.11per day 41 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 № ORIJEN
verified 2026-07-12

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 43.2%label: 38% min higher than 99% of dry foods
Fat 20.5%label: 18% min higher than 94% of dry foods
Fiber 4.5%label: 4% max typical — the median dry food is 5.4%
Est. carbohydrates ash not disclosed → 8% assumed, so this is an estimate ≈22.7%computed anchor available once more brands disclose ash
Calcium / Phosphorus extended guarantees: Ca 1.7% · P 1.2% · EPA 0.2% · DHA 0.2% · Ω-3 1% 1.42 : 1ratio, as fed within the AAFCO adult range (1:1 – 2:1)

Calories & cost — for your 40-lb adult dog

Calorie density 463 kcal/cup3860 kcal/kg denser than 92% of dry foods (median 388) — you feed fewer cups
Daily serving2¼ cups
Cost per day$3.11
23.5-lb bag lasts41 days

Cost per 1,000 kcal: $3.16 — cheaper than 15% 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 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)Beef · wild boar · lamb · pork · beef liver
Named animal protein first; named meals onlyYes
Legumes in first 10 (FDA DCM inquiry)None
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 — Orijen, 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)· price: Amazon, 2026-07-12 · 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.
·
Chicken-free recipeNot selected for your dog — but relevant if chicken sensitivity ever comes up.

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.

Beef, wild boar, lamb, pork, beef liver, beef meal, lamb meal, mackerel meal, herring meal, pork meal, whole red lentils, whole pinto beans, whole navy beans, whole green lentils, whole chickpeas, whole herring, pork liver, beef fat, natural pork flavor, dried apple pomace, pollock oil, pork kidney, beef kidney, beef tripe, vitamin E supplement, dried kelp, whole pumpkin, whole butternut squash, collard greens, whole apples, whole pears, zinc proteinate, mixed tocopherols (preservative), niacin, thiamine mononitrate, calcium pantothenate, pyridoxine hydrochloride, riboflavin, folic acid, vitamin B12 supplement, dried Bacillus coagulans fermentation product, dried chicory root, turmeric, sarsaparilla root, althea root, rosehips, juniper berries, citric acid (preservative), rosemary extract

Wet ingredients like fresh beef 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

Cheaper close matches

Verified foods with a closely matching label at a meaningfully lower cost per 1,000 kcal.

Victor Nutra Pro
41.8% protein (DM)$1.12 / 1,000 kcal65% less per 1,000 kcal
Blue Buffalo BLUE Wilderness Small Breed Adult Dog Chicken with Wholesome Grains Recipe
40.0% protein (DM)$2.34 / 1,000 kcal26% less per 1,000 kcal
Merrick Backcountry Raw Great Plains Red Grain Free Dog Food
39.3% protein (DM)$2.52 / 1,000 kcal20% less 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 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 states foods are crafted in 'our' kitchens; Orijen is manufactured in Alberta, Canada and Kentucky, USA by Champion (its own DogStar/NorthStar kitchens) per en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orijen.

source →
Employs a qualified nutritionist Yes — sourced

Champion's own About page claims 'Ph.D.-level nutrition experts' on staff. No individual is named and the specific field of the PhD is not stated; the 'Ph.D.-level' wording is the company's own characterization.

source →
AAFCO feeding trials Undisclosed

No feeding-trial AAFCO statement found on the 5 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 2005 ↗ Headquarters / plant Alberta, Canada ↗ FDA recalls on record None on record

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