Home / Dog food / Pedigree / PEDIGREE® With TENDER BITES Adult Dry Dog Food Chicken & Steak

PEDIGREE® With TENDER BITES Adult Dry Dog Food Chicken & Steak package official product image via Amazon

Pedigree · brand facts & recall history →

PEDIGREE® With TENDER BITES Adult Dry Dog Food Chicken & Steak

Dry food · adult dogs

A dry food that's cheaper per calorie than 93% of the dry foods we've priced and denser than 14% (you feed fewer cups) — $0.96 a day for your 40-lb adult dog.

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

$20.98 · 14 lb $0.96/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: 3 cupsper day $0.96per day 21 daysbag lasts 0 pass, 1 fail 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 № PEDIGR
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 23.9%label: 21% min lower than 92% of dry foods
Fat 11.4%label: 10% min lower than 90% 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 ≈51.1%computed anchor available once more brands disclose ash
Calcium / Phosphorus extended guarantees: Ca 1% · P 0.8% 1.25 : 1ratio, as fed within the AAFCO adult range (1:1 – 2:1)

Calories & cost — for your 40-lb adult dog

Calorie density 333 kcal/cup3349 kcal/kg lighter than 86% of dry foods (median 388) — you feed more cups
Daily serving3 cups
Cost per day$0.96
14-lb bag lasts21 days

Cost per 1,000 kcal: $0.98 — cheaper than 93% 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…").
 Not yet verified from label
First five ingredients (by pre-cooking weight)Ground Whole Grain Corn · Meat and Bone Meal · Soybean Meal · Animal Fat (Source of Omega-6 Fatty Acids [Preserved with BHA and Citric Acid]) · Ground Whole Grain Wheat
Named animal protein first; named meals onlyNo
Legumes in first 10 (FDA DCM inquiry)1 (soybean meal)
BHA / BHT preservativesYes — see ingredient list
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 — Pedigree, since 20232 on record — see recall history
ManufacturerNot confirmed from label
Label transparency 8 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.

·
Life-stage coverage not disclosedNo AAFCO nutrient-adequacy statement was found on the label for this SKU, so we cannot confirm adult-maintenance coverage.
✕
Does not pass our sensitive-stomach checksDoes not lead with a named animal protein. Contains an unnamed by-product. See sensitive-stomach qualifiers →
·
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.

Ground Whole Grain Corn, Meat and Bone Meal, Soybean Meal, Animal Fat (Source of Omega-6 Fatty Acids [Preserved with BHA and Citric Acid]), Ground Whole Grain Wheat, Natural Flavor, Corn Protein Meal, Dried Plain Beet Pulp, Chicken By-Product Meal, Chicken Meal, Glycerin, Salt, Sugar, Potassium Chloride, Choline Chloride, DL-Methionine, Dried Peas, Calcium Carbonate, Phosphoric Acid, BHT (preservative), BHA (preservative), Citric Acid (preservative), Potassium Sorbate (preservative), Zinc Sulfate, Natural Grilled Steak Flavor, Vitamin E Supplement, Red 40, L-Tryptophan, Dried Carrots, Yellow 6, Niacin Supplement (Vitamin B3), Blue 2, Copper Sulfate, D-Calcium Pantothenate (Vitamin B5), Sodium Selenite, Potassium Iodide, Yellow 5, Vitamin A Supplement, Riboflavin Supplement (Vitamin B2), Vitamin B12 Supplement, Thiamine Mononitrate (Vitamin B1), Vitamin D3 Supplement, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride (Vitamin B6), Folic Acid.

Nutritional twins

Cheaper close matches

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

Diamond Naturals Large Breed Adult Dog Lamb Meal & Rice Formula
24.4% protein (DM)$0.76 / 1,000 kcal23% less per 1,000 kcal
Diamond Naturals Large Breed Adult Dog Chicken & Rice Formula
25.6% protein (DM)$0.69 / 1,000 kcal29% 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

Mars Petcare owns/operates the Mattoon plant that produces Pedigree; Mars operates 14+ owned US plants.

source →
Employs a qualified nutritionist Yes — sourced

Official brand FAQ explicitly states PhD nutritionists on staff; also states formulators include 'PhD/MS animal nutritionists, as well as PhD/MS food scientists.' No individual named, but credential class (PhD nutritionist) is stated. Backed by Mars' Waltham Petcare Science Institute.

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.

Peer-reviewed research Yes — sourced

658 PubMed-indexed papers carry "Waltham Petcare Science Institute (Mars)" in an author affiliation (animal/pet-domain filtered) — a reproducible floor, not a total.

source →
Parent company Mars, Incorporated (Mars Petcare) ↗ Founded 1934 ↗ Headquarters / plant McLean, Virginia, U.S. ↗ FDA recalls on record 2 on record

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