One of the most common things people say when talking about the raw feeding concept BARF, is that it is too expensive or much more expensive than ready-made food, especially for large dog breeds.
Let´s see if it is true. And if it is true, what is the reason?
Comparing the costs is actually not that simple, because every food type is composed differently and therefore the assessment is difficult. Nevertheless, a comparative calculation can be made.
Costs for BARF
Let's take a look at the costs for the BARF rations for that dog that I mentioned in my latest post about protein (Myth no. 3: Too much protein in BARF!?!?). That dog weighs 28 kg and gets 720 g of BARF a day. The prices I use here come from Icelandic supermarkets such as Bónus and Krónan (no, I do not shop the food in Hagkaup) and from a regular German online BARF shop (as of June 2024), which is why shipping costs are also calculated on a pro rata basis. Strictly speaking, of course, you would have to add the electricity costs for storing the food in a freezer or fridge, but then we would also have to calculate some kind of storage fee for the ready-made food…maybe a little exaggerated 😉
I want to highlight though that – when calculating the average costs for BARF – I have not chosen the cheapest products only. For the meat, for example – which is by far the most cost driving factor in the calculations, I chose the cheaper soup meat (lamb) but also foal meat which is more expensive – with a 50 % ratio for each. In Iceland, lamb and foal are high quality meats as the animals live outside the whole time before being slaughtered. That in itself means that – if these types of meat are being fed – an addition of fish oil is not needed to even out the omega 3-omega 6-ratio in the BARF rations. But I calculated the fish oil anyways as it typically belongs to a BARF ration as in most countries people do not have access to such high quality meats or it costs a lot of money.
Also, for several reasons, it is recommended to feed dogs chunks of meat rather than minced meat. That is why I calculated the above mentioned meat types as they come in pieces. It is though possible to feed minced meat and in Iceland this is much cheaper. Below each BARF-calculation I will also state the monthly costs if minced meat (lamb and foal) would be fed instead of the meat stated above.
Monthly costs for BARF (ration without cereals or dairy)
(costs with minced meat: 25.294 ISK/month)
Monthly costs for BARF (ration with cereals, but no dairy)
(costs with minced meat: 23.191 ISK/month)
Monthly costs for dry food
The monthly costs when buying big packages are between 5.000 and 14.700 ISK.
For more detailed considerations, I also calculated those prices for the same products when bought in smaller packaging:
The monthly costs when buying smaller packages are are considerably higher with numbers between 12.700 and 30.000 ISK.
Monthly costs for wet food
The monthly costs are between 15.000 and 138.000 ISK (!!!).
As you can see, feeding with wet food is – with one exception of the product bought in Bónus - significantly more expensive than feeding with dry food and also – would you have guessed that? - much more expensive than BARF.
The price difference is only logical, because wet food often contains more animal ingredients than dry food, but unlike raw meat, it is processed and the processing itself can make it quite expensive.
Critical Consideration
The composition of the food
As you can see, there are significant price differences between the individual types of food/feeding. This happens, because if a food is sold at a very low price, then it simply contains little/less of the price-increasing components which is first and foremost meat. Often, large quantities of carbohydrate supplying ingredients are used. Therefore, a comparison solely based on prices makes little sense. However, better insights are being provided when comparing the animal components used in the food.
BARF consists of 70-80 % animal components, in dry food the proportion varies between 30 and 50% and in canned food it ranges from 12 to 70%.
If you compare BARF with dry food, you are comparing apples and oranges, because dry food contains rather small amounts of animal products and you won't know whether the animal components used are of good quality or simply slaughterhouse waste rich in connective tissue. If you were to create a BARF meal that contains only 10 % meat but 90 % rice, it would be even cheaper than the cheapest dry food.
Declarations on the packaging
Even in the case of the so-called “high quality” types of foods (with a ratio of animal products of ca. 50%), you should be careful, because the declaration of the meat content is often misleading. Some manufacturers weigh the meat content as wet matter, but the plant portion as dry matter. What is the result of this? A shift in favour of the meat ratio.
Here is a small example:
A ration consists of 200 g millet flakes (dry) and 800 g meat (raw). This means that it contains 80% meat and as a manufacturer, you are allowed to advertise the food as such.
However, the dry food still contains the 200 g millet flakes, but the meat shrinks to about 300 g dry matter during the drying process. So actually, the meat content is only 60% (300 g :500 g) and not 80%. However, if the supplier had used 200 g of cooked instead of 200 g dried millet flakes, the ratio would remain at 80% meat, because the cooked millet is soaked with water. The other way of declaration is of course more profitable for the supplier, because you save a lot of meat and can still legally advertise 80% meat content.
With BARF it is the other way around: Because vegetables/fruit contain even more water than meat, 200 g of vegetables/fruit and 800 g of meat result in a ratio of 91% meat to 9% (ca. 80 g) vegetables/fruit in dry matter.
On top of this, it is unfortunately rarely known which animal components exactly are being used in ready-made food and even if the manufacturers openly declare the ingredients, the ingredients are not always really nutritionally useful for dogs. Most dry foods are cheaper than BARF and some varieties of wet food contain 60-80 % animal ingredients, but the consumer rarely learns what exactly has been processed. It is possible to buy a few tons of carcass meal very cheaply in China that stems from chicken feathers and – here you go – there is "chicken" in the packaging. But the quality of the ingredients is often questionable - to say the least.
Actually, BARF can only be compared to so-called “high-meat-content wet foods”, where you really know which ingredients have been processed and with which you can ensure a really high meat content in the food. But as the calculation showed, feeding ready-made wet food is much more expensive than BARF.
Can good food really be cheap?
Actually, BARF cannot be more expensive than a comparable food with a high meat content. The explanation is easy and makes sense:
If you buy 1 kg of meat, you pay X ISK per kg. As dry matter, this 1 kg of meat then costs 3 or 4 times as much. A food manufacturer will certainly have different purchasing conditions, but he will not get the meat for free either. The manufacturer must process the ingredients, fill them into cans or press them into chunks, pack and store the product. He has to do marketing and the food needs to be transported from A to B. All this results in corresponding costs, which are of course passed on to the buyer. In addition, the manufacturer would of course like to make some surplus from selling the food – which is also added to the selling price. The retailer to whom the manufacturer sells the food also has to cover certain costs (storage, staff etc.) and so he also adds a price premium. This applies to all ready-made food.
So how could it even be possible that the per-kilo-price of any food is lower than the price of 1 kg of unprocessed meat? It is not possible. And this leads us to the reason for low prices: low meat content in the food.
Thoughts about BARF in Iceland
BARF is most likely more expensive in Iceland than in many other countries and even though I did not do the calculation for all countries, this conclusion is reasonable:
It is commonly known that Iceland is an expensive country. Meat especially is very expensive and since it is a relevant part of a BARF ration, it matters a lot. Food manufacturers from abroad certainly get their ingredients (which includes the animal content) for considerably lower costs than it would ever be possible in Iceland. And despite of extra costs for shipping their products to Iceland…they can still sell cheaper than BARF…but for this, see the statements above and just keep those in mind.
Also, the availability of products in shops is sometimes limited in Iceland, especially food supplements (e.g. seaweed or others if your dog has special needs) have to be ordered online. And shipping to Iceland, e.g. from mainland Europe or the US, is considerably more expensive than within those countries or even between countries in mainland Europe. In Europe and the US, people might not even have to think about shipping costs – they just drive or walk to the next BARF shop.
Conclusion
As the calculations showed, the monthly costs with BARF are no higher than with a ready-made food, at least if you use the right basis for comparison. Instead of just looking at the costs, what you should consider, however, is the composition of the food.
Dogs are known to be carnivores, which means they eat mainly meat and animal components. They also eat other food components, of course, but animal components should make up the main part of their diet. This can only be guaranteed by types of food that are even more expensive than BARF... That means: BARF is cheaper than comparable ready-made food - let´s BARF!
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