Home / Dog food / Zignature / Zignature Essence LIR Ocean Recipe Dry Food

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Zignature Essence LIR Ocean Recipe Dry Food

Dry food · all dogs

A formulated-to-meet, whitefish-first dry food that's denser than 87% (you feed fewer cups). Cost-per-day isn't available yet — this SKU isn't price-matched.

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

Tell us about your dogevery number on this page updates live ↓
40 lb
For a 40-lb adult: 2¼ cupsper day not pricedper day —bag lasts 1 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 № ZIGNAT
verified 2026-07-11

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 42.2%label: 38% min higher than 98% of dry foods
Fat 27.2%label: 24.5% min higher than 98% of dry foods
Fiber 3.3%label: 3% max lower than 98% of dry foods
Est. carbohydrates ash not disclosed → 8% assumed, so this is an estimate ≈18.3%computed anchor available once more brands disclose ash
Calcium / Phosphorus extended guarantees: Ω-3 1.1% Not yet verifiedcalcium/phosphorus no ratio to anchor

Calories & cost — for your 40-lb adult dog

Calorie density 447 kcal/cup4063 kcal/kg denser than 87% of dry foods (median 388) — you feed fewer cups
Daily serving2¼ cups
Cost per day—
Bag lasts—

Cost per 1,000 kcal not available yet — this SKU isn't price-matched to a current retail listing. 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 · growth
First five ingredients (by pre-cooking weight)Whitefish · Herring · Whitefish Meal · Herring Meal · Quinoa
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 — Zignature, 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) · 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.

✕
Not validated for adult maintenanceThe AAFCO statement on file covers growth only.
✓
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.

Whitefish, Herring, Whitefish Meal, Herring Meal, Quinoa, Pumpkin, Sunflower Oil (preserved with mixed tocopherols), Natural Flavor, Salt, Potassium Chloride, Choline Chloride, Vitamins (Vitamin E Supplement, Vitamin A Supplement, Niacinamide, D-Calcium Pantothenate, Riboflavin, Thiamine Mononitrate, Vitamin B12 Supplement, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Folic Acid), Mixed Tocopherols (Preservative), Minerals (Zinc Proteinate, Iron Proteinate, Copper Proteinate, Manganese Proteinate, Sodium Selenite, Calcium Iodate), Taurine, Rosemary Extract

Wet ingredients like fresh whitefish shrink once cooked — which is why named meals appearing high on the list matter: they keep meaningful animal protein after moisture is removed.

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 Co-packed

Zignature's own site describes all named production facilities as third-party 'partners,' not company-owned plants.

source →
Employs a qualified nutritionist Yes — sourced

Zignature states it contracts a full-time PhD animal nutritionist and DVMs via BSM Partners (a third-party pet nutrition consulting firm), not an in-house employee. No named individual or stated ACVN/ECVCN board certification was found.

source →
AAFCO feeding trials Yes — sourced

Zignature's own feeding-trials page claims the company voluntarily conducts long-term feeding studies beyond AAFCO minimums, even though every SKU in our corpus is labeled with the 'formulated' substantiation statement rather than a 'feeding trial' statement.

source →
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 Pets Global, Inc. ↗ Founded 2010 ↗ Headquarters / plant Valencia, California, USA ↗ FDA recalls on record None on record

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