Freshpet has been in our refrigerator plenty of times over the years, but Freshpet Delivery was new to us. Instead of grabbing a roll or bag during a grocery run, you can now build a fresh food plan around your dog and have it shipped directly to your door.
We tried three recipes with Freya: the Shredded Chicken Recipe, Beef and Chicken Recipe, and Chicken and Turkey Recipe. She liked all three. The Shredded Chicken, though? “Liked” doesn’t quite cover it. She LOVES that one.
So, after trying the food, playing around with the different plan options, and seeing how delivery compares to buying Freshpet at the grocery store, here’s what I think.
Freshpet Delivery takes a familiar fresh dog food brand and turns it into a much more personalized service. Instead of figuring out portions yourself, you get a meal plan and feeding guidelines based on your dog, with fresh, gently cooked food delivered right to your door.
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What Makes Freshpet Delivery Different?
Freshpet itself probably doesn’t need much of an introduction at this point. The brand has been making refrigerated fresh dog food for years, and you’ve probably seen those familiar Freshpet refrigerators in grocery stores, pet stores, Walmart, Target, or somewhere else you already shop.
The newer Freshpet Delivery service takes that same basic idea and turns it into a customizable subscription. So, you get the convenience of home delivery, personalized feeding recommendations, and the ability to build a plan around your dog, but many of the foods are also available at retail stores.
That last part is more useful than it might sound.
If you suddenly realize you’re going to run out of food two days before your next box arrives, there’s a decent chance you can pick up the same recipe locally rather than having to switch foods temporarily. The selection varies quite a bit by store, though (more on that later).
Freshpet Delivery Quick Overview
| Feature | Details |
|---|---|
| Food Type | Fresh, gently steam-cooked refrigerated dog food |
| Protein Sources | Chicken, turkey, beef, lamb, eggs, and other proteins depending on recipe |
| Recipes We Tried | Shredded Chicken, Beef and Chicken, and Chicken and Turkey |
| Standout Feature | Customizable fresh food plans delivered directly to your door |
| Plan Options | Full Plan, Half Plan, or Topper Plan |
| Storage | Keep refrigerated or frozen according to package directions |
| Preparation | Fully cooked and ready to serve; can be warmed briefly if your dog prefers it |
| Extras | Refrigerated treats, including Dognation Turkey Bacon and Chicken Treats |
| Best For | Dogs who enjoy fresh food, picky eaters, and anyone who wants fresh dog food delivered without completely giving up the convenience of retail availability |
Freshpet Ingredient Quality
The exact ingredient list varies from one Freshpet recipe to another, which is something you’ll want to pay attention to if your dog has food sensitivities or you’re trying to stick with specific proteins.
The overall approach, however, is pretty consistent.
Freshpet uses fresh animal proteins from USDA-inspected suppliers, with real meat as the first ingredient. Depending on the recipe, you’ll also see fruits and vegetables such as carrots, cranberries, pumpkin, green beans, spinach, and sweet potatoes.
- The Shredded Chicken Recipe starts with natural, U.S. farm-raised chicken and includes pumpkin, cranberries, carrots, and green beans. It’s made without gluten, soy, fillers, added preservatives, meat meals, or by-product meals.
- The Beef and Chicken Recipe combines U.S.-raised beef and chicken with eggs, sweet potatoes, carrots, green beans, spinach, cranberries, and lentils. It’s grain-free and contains no gluten, soy, fillers, added preservatives, meat meals, or by-product meals.
- The Chicken and Turkey Recipe uses chicken and turkey with ingredients including eggs, cranberries, carrots, sweet potatoes, green beans, and spinach. It’s also grain-free and made without added preservatives, meat meals, or by-product meals.
One thing to keep in mind is that not every Freshpet recipe is grain-free. That’s actually fine by me. Grain-free isn’t automatically better for every dog. They also provide the full ingredient list and nutritional information for individual recipes so you can check exactly what you’re getting before ordering.
Freshpet Delivery Top Features
- Fresh, fully cooked refrigerated dog food
- Real meat as the first ingredient
- Antioxidant-rich fruits and vegetables
- No added artificial preservatives
- No rendered meat meals, meat powders, or by-product meals
- Gently steam-cooked recipes
- Complete and balanced meal options
- Multiple protein combinations and textures
- Full Plan, Half Plan, and Topper Plan options
- Recurring home delivery with free shipping
- Resealable bags that are easier to fit into the freezer than bulky containers
- Refrigerated treats available as add-ons
- More than 20 quality and safety tests performed before meals leave Freshpet’s kitchens
- Freshpet kitchens registered with APHIS and the FDA
Freshpet Delivery Pros and Cons
✔ What I Like
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✖ What Could Be Better
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Our Real-World Freshpet Delivery Review
As I mentioned earlier, Freshpet isn’t new to us. We’ve been buying the loaf-style refrigerated food here and there for ages, usually to use as a topper. What was new was having Freshpet delivered to the house and trying some of these different styles and textures.
The timing also happened to be pretty perfect for Freya.
She had only recently started getting her appetite back after her heart disease diagnosis. It took some time for her to adjust to her medications and for the stomach upset to settle down. Even once she wanted to eat again, she remained ridiculously picky about actual dog food. Foods she used to love were suddenly questionable.
We started with the Freshpet Shredded Chicken Recipe for a very specific reason. During the time when Freya wasn’t interested in much dog food, we gave her a lot of plain shredded chicken. I wanted to transition her back toward a complete dog food, but I also wanted something that looked and tasted familiar enough that she wouldn’t immediately reject it.
“Not rejecting it” was really all we were going for here. I would have been happy if she picked at it.
She ate an entire big serving and then went looking for more.
That alone was impressive considering how picky she’d been. More importantly from my side of things, I am thrilled to give her something she actually loves that also gives her the nutrition she needs, rather than trying to cobble together even remotely “complete” meals from whatever human food she happened to decide was acceptable that day.
Next we tried the Beef and Chicken Recipe, followed by the Chicken and Turkey Recipe. I didn’t have high hopes for these because the texture is a little different. The proteins are more like tiny nuggets than shredded strips, so I thought she’d think it was too “dog-food-like.” Again she ate every bite.
The Shredded Chicken is still the clear winner, though. There’s liking your dinner, and then there’s Freya’s version of liking your dinner, which involves finishing it and immediately staring at the fridge where she saw me put the rest of the bag.
From my end, I really like the convenience of the delivery setup.
Yes, you can find many of these foods in stores that carry Freshpet, and I actually consider that a benefit rather than a reason to skip delivery. If I miscalculate and run short before the next delivery, I can grab a bag of the Shredded Chicken locally and keep feeding Freya the same food. No emergency diet switch required.
The problem is that individual stores don’t necessarily carry every recipe. The grocery store down the street from us has the Shredded Chicken, for example, but not the other two recipes we tried.
With delivery, I don’t have to hunt around for the specific varieties I want. The food shows up at the house on a schedule, and I can build the shipment around what Freya actually eats.
At the time of this review, Freshpet also offers an introductory discount for new Delivery customers, followed by savings on recurring deliveries. If you order through our link, you can save 55% on your first order, followed by 5% off subsequent deliveries. That recurring discount puts the price a little below what we’d pay locally for comparable Freshpet bags, with the obvious added perk that I don’t have to leave the house to get them.
The bags are another little thing I appreciate. Fresh dog food takes up freezer space. There’s really no getting around that. But flexible bags are much easier to tuck into whatever weird little openings are available between everything else I’ve shoved in there.
Once moved to the refrigerator, the food thaws relatively quickly. Freshpet is fully cooked and can be served straight from the refrigerator, but you can also microwave it for a few seconds if your dog prefers food slightly warmer. Just take it out of the package before nuking it. Pretty sure that goes without saying, but I’m saying it anyway. 😀
I also like the flexibility of the plans. You don’t have to go all-in on fresh food if that doesn’t work for your budget or feeding routine. You can choose a Full Plan, Half Plan, or Topper Plan. Freshpet can recommend an amount based on questions about your dog, including weight and activity level, or you can customize the plan and decide how much of each recipe you want.
You can follow Freshpet’s recommended plan or customize the order yourself and choose the recipes and quantities you want. For example, if you’re getting 14 bags total and know your dog loves Shredded Chicken but also likes some variety here and there, you can get more of their favorite and then mix-and-match the rest.
We Also Tried the Freshpet Treats
We added two extras to our order: Dognation Turkey Bacon Treats and Dognation Chicken Treats.
I love how short the ingredient lists are for these. The Chicken Treats contain chicken, ground oats, chicken broth, salt, natural flavors, vinegar, and celery powder. The Turkey Bacon Treats contain turkey, water, pea fiber, salt, potassium chloride, and celery powder.
The bags are pretty small. The Turkey Bacon bag is 3 ounces, and the Chicken Treats bag is 6.4 ounces. The treats themselves are lightweight, though, so there’s more in there than I expected from looking at the package.
Just remember these aren’t treats you can toss into a cabinet and forget about. They need to stay refrigerated. Freshpet recommends using opened Chicken Treats within 10 days and Turkey Bacon Treats within 14 days.
Freya loved both varieties, although I think the bacon is her favorite.
What Could Freshpet Delivery Improve?
My biggest issue isn’t really with the quality of the recipes. It’s with the protein variety.
Chicken shows up a lot. Of the Delivery recipes currently available, the Shredded Chicken Recipe is the only single-protein option we tried, and chicken is included in most of the broader recipe selection. The Beef, Turkey and Lamb Recipe is the only totally chicken-free Delivery option, although we didn’t try that one for this review.
I’d really like to see Freshpet expand both ends of that spectrum: more chicken-free foods for dogs who can’t eat chicken and more single-protein recipes for dogs who need limited-ingredient recipes. I’d especially love to see single-protein beef and turkey options eventually.
Price is the other obvious consideration. Fresh food costs more than feeding most traditional kibble or canned diets, particularly with a larger dog. There’s no getting around that. Freshpet Delivery is competitively priced within the fresh-food category, though. Plus, the Half Plan or Topper Plan makes it easier to fit into different budgets.
And then there’s freezer space. You need some. The good news is that the bags make Freshpet considerably easier to shuffle around than rigid containers. If you’re already an expert at freezer Tetris, you’ll manage.
Is Freshpet Delivery Worth It?
For us, yes. Freshpet Delivery gives me most of what I want from a fresh dog food subscription without completely tying me to home delivery. I can customize Freya’s order, choose how much fresh food I want to feed, have it show up at the house, and still run to a local store for at least some recipes if I unexpectedly run out.
Most importantly, Freya actually wants to eat it.
After spending weeks in literal tears trying to tempt her with different foods while her appetite recovered and begging her to just eat something, watching her demolish a bowl of Shredded Chicken and go looking for seconds was enough to make that recipe a permanent member of the rotation.
I’d like more chicken-free and single-protein choices, and feeding fresh food will always require more refrigerator/freezer space and a larger budget than throwing a scoop of kibble into a bowl.
But if you’re looking for fresh, gently cooked food with recognizable ingredients and you like the idea of delivery without giving up the option of buying your dog’s food locally, Freshpet Delivery occupies a pretty useful middle ground.
And according to Freya, they should probably just send us a truckload of the Shredded Chicken.
Freshpet Delivery takes a familiar fresh dog food brand and turns it into a much more personalized service. Instead of figuring out portions yourself, you get a meal plan and feeding guidelines based on your dog, with fresh, gently cooked food delivered right to your door.
BEST PRICE GUARANTEED
SAVE 55% OFF YOUR FIRST ORDER WITH FRESHPETPPA55
