Ol’ Roy Meaty Loaf Dog Food receives the Advisor’s second-lowest tier rating of 2.5 stars.

The Ol’ Roy Meaty Loaf product line includes two canned recipes, each claimed to meet AAFCO nutrient profiles for all life stages.

The following is a list of recipes available at the time of this review.

• Ol’ Roy Meaty Loaf Savory Chicken Dinner
• Ol’ Roy Meaty Loaf with Beef and Vegetables

Ol’ Roy Meaty Loaf Savory Chicken Dinner was selected to represent both products in the line for this review.

The first ingredient in this dog food is water, which adds nothing but moisture to this food. Water is a routine finding in most canned dog foods.

The second ingredient is chicken. Chicken is considered “the clean combination of flesh and skin… derived from the parts or whole carcasses of chicken”.¹

Chicken is naturally rich in the ten essential amino acids required by a dog to sustain life.

The third ingredient is chicken by-products, or slaughterhouse waste. This is what’s left of a slaughtered chicken after all the prime cuts have been removed.

In addition to organs (the nourishing part), this stuff can contain almost anything — feet, beaks, undeveloped eggs — anything except quality skeletal muscle (real meat).

Although this item contains all the amino acids a dog needs, we consider chicken by-products an inexpensive, lower quality ingredient.

The fourth ingredient is meat by-products, an item made from slaughterhouse waste. This is what’s left of slaughtered animals after all the prime striated muscle cuts have been removed.

With the exception of hair, horns, teeth and hooves, this item can include almost any other part of the animal.²

Although most meat by-products can be nutritious, we do not consider such vaguely described (generic) ingredients to be as high in quality as those derived from a named animal source.

The fifth ingredient is textured vegetable protein (also known as TVP). This agricultural by-product and meat substitute is what remians of soybeans after extracting the oil.

Even though TVP contains over 52% protein, this ingredient would be expected to have a lower biological value than meat.

And less costly plant-based products like this can notably boost the total protein reported on the label — a factor that must be considered when judging the actual meat content of this dog food.

The sixth ingredient is rice. Is this whole grain rice, brown rice or white rice? Since the word “rice” doesn’t tell us much, it’s impossible to judge the quality of this item.

From here, the list goes on to include a number of other items.

But to be realistic, ingredients located this far down the list (other than nutritional supplements) are not likely to affect the overall rating of this product.

With three notable exceptions…

First, we’re always disappointed to find artificial coloring in any pet food. That’s because coloring is used to make the product more appealing to humans — not your dog. After all, do you really think your dog cares what color his food is?

Next, carrageenan is a gelatin-like thickening agent extracted from seaweed. Although carrageenan has been used as a food additive for hundreds of years, there appears to be some recent controversy regarding its long term biological safety.

And lastly, this food contains chelated minerals, minerals that have been chemically attached to protein. This makes them easier to absorb. Chelated minerals are usually found in better dog foods.

Ol’ Roy Meaty Loaf Dog Food Review

Judging by its ingredients alone, Ol’ Roy Meaty Loaf Dog Food looks like a below-average canned product.

But ingredient quality by itself cannot tell the whole story. We still need to estimate the product’s meat content before determining a final rating.

The dashboard displays a dry matter protein reading of 36%, a fat level of 27% and estimated carbohydrates of about 28%.

And a fat-to-protein ratio of about 75%.

Below-average protein. Above-average fat. And near-average carbs when compared to a typical canned dog food.

When you consider the protein-boosting effect of the textured vegetable protein, this looks like the profile of a canned product containing a limited amount of meat.

Bottom line?

Ol’ Roy Meaty Loaf is a meat-based wet dog food using a a limited amount of chicken and meat by-products as its main sources of animal protein, thus earning the brand 2.5 stars.

Not recommended.

Please note certain recipes are sometimes given a higher or lower rating based upon our estimate of their total meat content and (when appropriate) their fat-to-protein ratios.

Special Alert

Because we’re unable to locate complete label information for this product on a company owned website, we’re compelled to rely on photos collected by volunteers at various retail locations.

So, information manually copied from these images and used for analysis can lead to data entry errors, incomplete product listings and inaccurate nutrient averages.

In addition, recipe changes and ingredient substitutions may not be apparent to our research staff or consumers.

For these reasons, we recommend shoppers use caution when considering the purchase of any dog food listed in this review.

Notes and Updates