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Wellness Large Breed Puppy Chicken & Turkey Recipe package official product image via Amazon

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Wellness Large Breed Puppy Chicken & Turkey Recipe

Dry food · puppy dogs

A deboned-first dry food that's cheaper per calorie than 42% of the dry foods we've priced and denser than 76% (you feed fewer cups) — $2.01 a day for your 40-lb adult dog.

THE FACTS, ONE SENTENCE — data as JSON · reference dog 40 lb · updated 2026-10-18

$77.98 · 24 lb $2.01/day as of 2026-10-18 Check price →
Tell us about your dogevery number on this page updates live ↓
40 lb
For a 40-lb adult: 2¼ cupsper day $2.01per day 38 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 № WELLNE
verified 2026-10-18

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 37.8%label: 34% min higher than 91% of dry foods
Fat 14.4%label: 13% min lower than 73% of dry foods
Fiber 5.6%label: 5% max typical — the median dry food is 5.4%
Est. carbohydrates ash not disclosed → 8% assumed, so this is an estimate ≈33.3%computed anchor available once more brands disclose ash
Calcium / Phosphorus extended guarantees: Ca 1.3% · P 1% · DHA 0.1% 1.30 : 1ratio, as fed within the AAFCO adult range (1:1 – 2:1)

Calories & cost — for your 40-lb adult dog

Calorie density 417 kcal/cup3505 kcal/kg denser than 76% of dry foods (median 388) — you feed fewer cups
Daily serving2¼ cups
Cost per day$2.01
24-lb bag lasts38 days

Cost per 1,000 kcal: $2.04 — cheaper than 42% 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)Deboned Chicken · Chicken Meal (source of Glucosamine and Chondroitin Sulfate) · Peas · Turkey Meal · Lentils
Named animal protein first; named meals onlyYes
Legumes in first 10 (FDA DCM inquiry)2 (peas, lentils)
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 — Wellness, since 2023None on record
ManufacturerNot confirmed from label
Label transparency 9 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, 2026-10-18 · 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 →

Deboned Chicken, Chicken Meal (source of Glucosamine and Chondroitin Sulfate), Peas, Turkey Meal, Lentils, Dried Ground Potatoes, Dried Plain Beet Pulp, Chicken Fat, Flaxseed, Salmon Oil, Natural Flavor, Salt, Dried Chicory Root, Potassium Chloride, Taurine, Vitamin E Supplement, Spinach, Broccoli, Carrots, Parsley, Apples, Blueberries, Kale, Mixed Tocopherols (added to preserve freshness), Niacin, Zinc Proteinate, Zinc Sulfate, Ferrous Sulfate, Iron Proteinate, Vitamin A Supplement, Thiamine Mononitrate, Copper Sulfate, d-Calcium Pantothenate, Copper Proteinate, Sodium Selenite, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Manganese Sulfate, Riboflavin, Manganese Proteinate, Biotin, Vitamin D3 Supplement, Yucca Schidigera Extract, Vitamin B12 Supplement, Calcium Iodate, Folic Acid, Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C), Dried Enterococcus faecium Fermentation Product, Dried Bacillus licheniformis Fermentation Product, Dried Bacillus subtilis Fermentation Product, Rosemary Extract, Green Tea Extract, Spearmint Extract

15 ingredients in this list are ones we hold sourced evidence on , and 3 of them are genuinely contested rather than merely unpopular online.

  • Peas · ingredient 3ContestedA pulse (legume) used in many grain-free foods as a plant protein and carbohydrate source. Peas are central to an open FDA investigation, begun in July 2018, into a possible link between diets high in peas, other pulses, and potatoes and canine dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM); 93% of reported products contained peas and/or lentils.
  • Lentils · ingredient 5ContestedA pulse (legume) common in grain-free formulas as a protein and carbohydrate source. Lentils are named alongside peas in the FDA's open 2018 investigation into diet-associated canine DCM; the agency grouped 'peas and/or lentils,' which appeared in 93% of reported products.
  • Potato · ingredient 6ContestedA 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 Muscle Meat (e.g., Deboned Chicken, Beef, Salmon) · ingredient 1Well supportedA named fresh muscle meat identifies both the species and that it is clean flesh (AAFCO defines 'meat' as the clean flesh of a specified slaughtered mammal, and 'poultry' as clean flesh and skin). Naming the species is what lets an owner verify a protein for allergy avoidance.
  • Named Meat/Poultry Meal (e.g., Chicken Meal, Lamb Meal) · ingredient 4Well 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.
  • Beet Pulp · ingredient 7Well 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.

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

Company owns and operates its own plants. (Wikipedia lists Arkansas/Minnesota/Netherlands — state naming differs by source, but both confirm company-owned manufacturing, not co-packers.)

source →
Employs a qualified nutritionist Undisclosed

We could not confirm this from a public source.

source →
AAFCO feeding trials Yes — sourced

4 of 163 labels we checked carry an AAFCO feeding-trial substantiation statement.

source →
Publishes quality-control testing Not found

Wellness safety page, WSAVA-compliance blog and FAQ describe HACCP, supplier requirements, audits and certifications, but no concrete ingredient or finished-product testing statement found (system-level only).

Peer-reviewed research None found

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

source →
Parent company Wellness Pet Company (formerly WellPet), owned by Clearlake Capital Group, L.P. ↗ Founded 1997 ↗ Headquarters / plant Tewksbury, Massachusetts, USA ↗ FDA recalls on record 2 on record

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