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Spot & Tango Beef + Barley

Air-dried food · all dogs

A formulated-to-meet, beef-first air-dried food from Spot & Tango. Pricing and/or calorie data haven't been independently confirmed for this SKU yet, so cost-per-day isn't shown.

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

≈ $7.50/day estimate — brand's published pricing Order direct →
Tell us about your dogevery number on this page updates live ↓
40 lb
For a 40-lb adult: not pricedper day —bag 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. Corpus dot-anchors currently cover dry food only — this is a air-dried food, so anchors are omitted below rather than compared across forms.

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

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 28.4%label: 27% min no corpus anchor for this food form
Fat 23.2%label: 22% min no corpus anchor for this food form
Fiber 5.3%label: 5% max no corpus anchor for this food form
Est. carbohydrates ash not disclosed → 8% assumed, so this is an estimate ≈34.7%computed no corpus anchor for this food form
Calcium / Phosphorus extended guarantees: none verified yet Not yet verifiedcalcium/phosphorus no ratio to anchor

Calories & cost — for your 40-lb adult dog

Calorie density 4792 kcal/kgper-serving value not disclosed no corpus anchor for this food form
Daily serving—
Cost per day—
Bag lasts—

No cost per 1,000 kcal yet: we haven't matched this food to a current Amazon listing. 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 →
 Formulated to meet · all_life_stages
First five ingredients (by pre-cooking weight)Beef · Barley · Flax Seeds · Safflower Oil · Beets
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
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 — Spot & Tango, since 2023None on record
ManufacturerNot confirmed from label
Label transparency 7 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.
·
Chicken-free recipeNot selected for your dog — but relevant if chicken sensitivity ever comes up.

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, Barley, Flax Seeds, Safflower Oil, Beets, Green Beans, S&T Nutrient Blend (Dicalcium Phosphate, Calcium Carbonate, Potassium Chloride, Fish Oil, Choline Chloride, L-Threonine, L-Tryptophan, Zinc Proteinate, Iron Chelate, Vitamin E Supplement, Selenium Yeast, Copper Amino Acid Chelate, Mineral Oil, Silicon Dioxide, Folic Acid, Calcium Pantothenate, Cobalamin, Riboflavin, Vitamin D Supplement, Thiamine Mononitrate, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Biotin, Niacin, Ascorbic Acid), Carrots, Cranberries, Salt, Rosemary, Dried Kelp, Mixed Tocopherols

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

  • Fish oil (EPA + DHA omega-3) · ingredient 7Well supportedMarine-source omega-3 fatty acids (EPA and DHA) from fish oil. A randomized, double-blinded controlled trial (Roush 2010) found improved weight-bearing in dogs with osteoarthritis, and a 2022 meta-analysis identified clear clinical analgesic efficacy for omega-3-enriched diets and supplements.
  • Rosemary extract · ingredient 11Well 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.
  • 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.
  • Flaxseed (ALA omega-3) · ingredient 3NeutralA 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.

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 Mixed

Spot & Tango owns and operates its own ~70,000 sq ft manufacturing facility (Upper Macungie Township / Allentown, PA) where its UnKibble dry line is produced; the article implies wet food is made elsewhere (co-packed), hence 'mixed.' Same article: it 'cut the ribbon on a new, nearly 70,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Upper Macungie Township.'

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 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.

Publishes quality-control testing Not found

Own site says 'Each batch is 3rd-party tested for safety and quality' (https://spotandtango.com/wsava) but gives no detail on what is tested, so treated as vague. Searched spotandtango.com/wsava, /faq, blog AAFCO posts.

Peer-reviewed research None found

PubMed lists no animal or pet paper with Spot & Tango in an author address. Not proof no research exists — only that none is indexed under that company name.

source →
Parent company Spot & Tango (independent, venture-backed; founder Russell Breuer) ↗ Founded 2018 ↗ Headquarters / plant New York, NY ↗ FDA recalls on record None on record

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