| Website | Applaws |
| Available from | Pet Circle |
Applaws is a grace to our supermarket shelves. If you shop in Woolworths this is likely your best option, and it stacks up well in Coles as well.
For this review we’ll focus on the Chicken formula, but the Ocean Fish with Salmon is on par. Let’s take a look…
We find a whopping 37% protein and 20% fat in the food which is excellent. It assures us minimal carbs, and given cats are obligate carnivores they definitely don’t need carbs. Other brands inflate protein with vegetables and corn, but there’s none of that trickery here as the bulk of the food is dried chicken meal and chicken mince. Great!
We find potato as the 3rd ingredient, but the composition would suggest this is kept to a minimum. This won’t provide much benefit to cats but all kibble needs a starch to bind it, and it’s better to see potato than allergenic cereal grains like wheat.
There aren’t any nasties in the food, and some of the less prominent ingredients like kelp/seaweed, and cranberry are nice to see. Another bonus is they use rosemary extract as a natural preservative which will be far healthier than ambiguous chemicals used in cheap products.
Overall this is a really good cat food and it’s nice to see it readily available in our supermarkets. Recommended.
Ingredients
Dry Chicken Meal (65%), Chicken Mince (17%), Potato, Brewer’s yeast, Beet Pulp, Chicken Gravy, Salmon Oil, Vitamins and Minerals, Dried Egg, Cellulose Plant Fibre (0.03%), Sodium Chloride, Calcium Carbonate, Seaweed/Kelp, Cranberry, DL-Methionine, Potassium Chloride, Yucca Extract, Citrus Extract, Rosemary Extract
Hi,
I have two cats that I fed Sechir/Applaws wet food and Applaws dry food because from my research a mix of wet and dry food should be good for them. Recently my older one had some small renal issues that came up during the blood tests for her sterilization so the vet gave me a medicine and told me to give her mostly dry food from now on. I argued that I thought wet food helps with renal issues, but he said it can trick the cat into drinking less water. I started giving them less and less wet food in the end, but I gotta say I’m still not really convinced I did the right thing.
Now my younger cat started to gain a lot of weight, but Applaws doesn’t have a diet option. I don’t trust Royal Canin and from what I read on your site Hill doesn’t seem like an amazing option either. I also asked the vet and he said I shouldn’t shy away from cereal-based foods, which again doesn’t seem right as cats don’t eat that in nature. The vet seems really knowledgeable overall, but I feel like there aren’t too many studies done for pets in general and things are a little behind if you compare it with the research and medical advancements done for humans.
Do you have any advice on what good food I can try that will be good for my cats but keep the weight of my younger one in check? Is wet food actually bad and can cause renal issues?
TIA!
It really is the opposite. My cat had some renal issues, so we changed to 90% wet food. We only give him some special kibbles in the evenings. I also add extra water to the wet food to insure the good amount of water.
Generally I would add 2 teaspoonful hot water to a heaped teaspoonful of wet food and try to make the sauce more saucy or to get the jelly parts to melt into sauce, and would give it to our cat lukewarm (as it is the fresh kill)
His output really improved, as well as his mood and activity level.
I can highly recommend wet diet to every cat.
You can find plenty good info on the internet, but please make sure they’re from reliable sources 🙂
Hi Drew, it seems to be your vet believed what they were taught in university, probably by coursework provided by a pet food company, or even a lecturer on the payroll of a pet food company, and never questioned why grains should be good for a carnivorous animal.
I strongly suspect the epidemic of renal failure in cats fed grain-based dry foods is the #1 reason of renal issues in the first place. Wouldn’t you agree?
Moisture is so important for a cat, and given they rarely drink water from the bowl (they’re desert animals, and it’s not in their nature) they must have water provided in their diet. Dry food has barely any moisture whatsoever.
Hi, i have been feeding my two cats the Applaws wet food supplementary, looking for an alternative to Zealandia wet cans as my girls seem to have gone off those at the moment. They both love the tuna and prawn tins of Applaws and while on holidays I have purchased some of the Applaws dry food as I ran out of our usual Healthy everyday pets while we were away. They seemed to really like this also so as a bit of a cheaper alternative I now sometimes supplement or mix this in to thier usual dry food to save a little bit of money. However, recently i ran completely out of healthy everyday pets and they were sold out in my usual stores so continued just feeding Applaws, one of my cats seems to have developed an allergy around her chin and eyebrows back towards her ears, she has scratched raw. Its been a recurring issue I’m beginning to link it back to periods where they have been fed the Applaws dry kibble.
I noticed in some of the older reviews people had claimed pet allergies but couldn’t find anything recently.
I have changed them back to solely healthy everyday pets dry food and her skin has nearly cleared up.
Is there any recommendations on how i can make a clear distinction if it is the food that may be causing the allergy? It is a shame as it was beginning to be a great easily accessible and much more affordable alternative they both liked.
Given what you’ve said it does seem your cat is reacting to something in the Applaws, but it might be difficult to figure out if a particular ingredient is the cause. Comparing the ingredients of the Healthy Everyday Pets formula to the Applaws formula may give some ideas, but I assume both are chicken formulas?
This is the dry food my kitties have the choice of eating – it’s such a pity applaws wet food isn’t a suitable dietary option cause mine are absolute fiends for it but it’s been designed to special occasions only.
Also the company are great I emailed them regarding this in the hopes that there was or may be a complete dietary option on the horizon and they were very transparent that there isn’t and their wet food should only be given as a treat or in combination with their dry food, which as a consumer I really appreciated- as my cats will not and do not get anywhere near their dietary essentials from dry food as they’re far more partial to wet foods we changed their diets according but have kept the dry food on hand for just in case.
I really can’t speak highly enough of this company who were more willing to be honest and lose a costumer than use some kind of double speak that would have been a detriment to my cats health
Hello, I notice in the review a 37% protein value is said. The Applaws dry cat food I find today states 32% minimum protein. Have they changed the recipe since this review and is it still recommended? Thanks
Thanks Terry, I must update the review.
Applaws is still a good option, particularly considering the reasonable cost. It’s sad to see formulas change (they pretty much always get worse rather than better). A good idea is always to add some fresh meats which will not only add digestible protein, will also help your cat with moisture – cats aren’t big drinkers.
My 15 year old daughter has just adopted a cat. It’s the first cat to be in the family. It’s very skinny and in its foster home was being fed Friskies which I don’t really want to have him being fed here.
She read the reviews on Applaws and likes it but then we noticed it said complementary feeding on the can. Does that mean he can’t have it every day? At the moment she’s giving him half a can with his morning biscuits and half a can with his evening biscuits. Is there a different wet food she should be using or is this ok along with biscuits?
Also I’ve noticed that the ingredient list doesn’t list taurine as an added and I’ve read that cats need taurine? Is that a problem with this food?
Hi Nique, yes the Applaws canned foods are “for supplemental feeding only”. What that means is they don’t contain all the nutrients (such as vitamins and minerals) required for a cat to have a balanced diet (which is labelled “complete and balanced”). That said, they’re fine as part of the diet, and moisture is essential in a cat’s diet – wet foods are better than dry, especially for cats.
Complete & balanced cat foods require taurine to be included, either from ingredients which naturally contain taurine (meats/organs) or added as a supplement. Sometimes taurine isn’t specifically listed but that doesn’t mean it’s not present, although that said I think I need to update the ingredients list for Applaws…
I’ve noticed in our bag of Applaws cat biscuits it has Taurine listed in the ingredients now.
Have you ever done a review on Tiki Cat brand food?
Interested to hear your thoughts on the Applaws wet food varieties as I don’t like feeding dry to my cat? Thank you.
I believe all Applaws wet foods other than the kitten recipe are “for supplemental feeding only”. What this means is they don’t contain the vitamins and minerals required for a balanced diet. They shouldn’t be used as a complete diet, only as a treat. There’s still benefits though, as they contain meat and moisture – both fundamental to a feline diet.
I was just wondering if this food would be ok for a diabetic cat. My cat hates eating the same thing every day, or even every second day so I’m looking for a little variety once a week with both wet and dry food.
My 8 year old cat has developed an allergic reaction to this food.. We tried it because of the good review, but after a few months, he started getting incredibly itchy skin! He licked his back leg raw, as well as his paw pads on his back foot.. he also ended up with sores all through his ears, and his ears were very red and irritated! The vet said it was an allergic reaction, and Lo and behold the reaction subsided when we changed him to the vet recommended food.
Hi Nicole’s, what’s the vet-recommended food?
Definitely sounds like an allergy to something in the food…
Applaws switched to a new production facility recently which means the formulation may have changed.
Edanna is correct – the vet recommended food simply doesn’t contain the allergen. It probably does however contain rice or maize.
The vet recommended food is called Delicate Care (Skin and Stomach).. I looked for a review before purchasing, but it hasn’t been reviewed (and I know the cat doesn’t react to this food) so I purchased some today. It contains natural and hypo-allergenic ingredients.. it does contain grain, but there is no rice or maize, they use sorghum.
Ingredients are listed below:
Whole Sorghum, Australian Duck, Australian Kangaroo, Kangaroo Digest, Omega Magic™ Essential Oil Blend, Coconut Oil, Ammonium Chloride, Choline, L-Lysine, FOS (Fructo-Oligo-Saccharides), Yeast Extracts, L-carnitine, Yucca Schidigera Extract, DL-Methionine, Paraffin Oil, Vitamins A D3 E K B1 B2 B3 B5 B6 B12, Folic Acid, Citric Acid, Taurine, Biotin, Copper Sulphate, Zinc Sulphate, Iron Sulphate, Manganese Oxide, Calcium Iodate and Selenium. Product protected by natural mixed tocopherols (Vitamin E) and rosemary extract.
My cats have allergic reaction to this particular dry food.
My cat has too!
She used to like this food very much. However, she hardly eat after the package was changed. I guess the recipe also was changed.
She also has rash around the neck and head recently and I stopped feeding.
She still eat cheapy dry foods like Whiskas well. So I have to say this product must have some issue.
I totally agreed with this review until the package was changed but no longer.
I have to find new food.
Hi how did you see a rash under cat fur, was it really bad & red.
I’m bringing my new kitten home next month, I was thinking to buy this food , could you explain your cats allergic reaction please, are they OK now,
I haven’t fed this brand to cats but dog wasn’t keen on it. All my cats like Black Hawk, they seem to do well on it, and they are fussy eaters. Try you cat on a few things, don’t be set on one. I still experiment with other brands but it means throwing out all the food they reject. Fortunately, they find Whiskas, Dine and Fussy Cat edible.
First off, I sincerely want to thank admin for all the hours of work you have put in to this site. I found it recently while desperately trying to diagnose one of my cats for suspected food allergies.
Secondly, I am still desperate for help. I will try to make this short. I have 5 cats, none of the original 4 ever had problems with diet or allergies. So it’s only now with our newest addition, (a rescue cat that was too adorable not to adopt) that I’ve found myself reading every cat food label known to man.
Now I know what is in Whiskas… that’s gone. Full credits to admin. They now have big bowl of Applaws. As for wet food, I’m really struggling. It’s taken 2 vets to confirm it was food allergy, which after hours of research I’d pretty much guessed. She mentioned novel diet, which I’d also read about but this is where things go pear-shaped. Eliminating all previous proteins down to one. Commercially made cat food with only one protein is so difficult to find. But I managed to narrow it down to Tuna, Salmon and Whitebait. I guessed having 3 was better than a possible 9 and at least it was just seafood. None of this “salmon with lamb/beef and chicken/pork” bs. She was improving and her fur was growing back. But 2 days ago the poor little girl is back to scratching until she bleeds, lumps and bumps everywhere. The wet food is Purr (Coles brand) but the ingredients read ok. Now I’m in total guilt soaked panic that I’ve been feeding her the one protein she’s allergic too? Tonight I decided to get her off the fish diet and just try chicken. Roast chicken tonight, but will now have to search for just chicken based cat food tomorrow and hope I can isolate that one protein.
I’m really sorry this was so long. I’m trying to keep calm but it breaks my heart to see her like this again. I’ve put her back on prednil in the hope it helps.
This is honestly the best site out there when it comes to the break down of ingredients so I’m hoping anyone reading this has some advice.
And I’m really sorry if I should be not posting this here too.
my cat has Ibs and after 2 years on Royal Canin Hypo-allergenic dry food has not improved Has blood in stools. Won’t eat it or Hills I b tinned food Any recommendations please. Gave him chicken Applaws last night which he devoured. Is it safe to give him tin daily plus Hills IB dry food and a chicken neck.
Have you tried Sardines in oil. Two of my cats love this. Dog is all over it. I like Black Hawk for dry food.
I wonder if a change to a freeze dried food may help, no grains or anything just meat veggies and fruits, K9 has a chicken for dogs I’m not sure what additional flavour the cat has added but I remember it actually did. Ziwipeak is great but there’s no chicken, I wonder if venison would be OK as its novel.
FrontierPets has chicken only sadly it’s dog only right now.
Sunday Pets I know have cat recipes.
I think freeze dried wise that’s it, I have all of them except Ziwi and Sunday and Ziwi is dried or canned it’s not actually freeze dried.
Freeze dried is also an expensive process so the foods are not cheap but they may be worth a try if it will end her suffering.
Thanks for your reply Veronika. I had seen this brand before online, but haven’t gone as far as getting to their website. Pricey for sure, but definitely worth a go.
I like that there are at least two options with venison and rabbit. The vet laughed when I told her that she got used to me spoon feeding her when her collar was on. It’s not something I’d ever thought I’d do that’s for sure. But at least for now, I know exactly what she’s eating and she’s not at all interesting in the other cats’ food.
I will have a look at Sunday Pets too. 🙂
Hi Melissa, also have a look at Canidae Pure (wet and dry). Always seems to work very well with allergies, and would be a good starting point.
Hi,
recently contact Applaws about if it’s okay to feed this to a 4 month old kitten or not, their reply was “The Applaws dry cat food is absolutely also suitable for kittens. It is super premium quality, with all the essential nutritional needs for cats of all ages”
We have made the switch and our kitten demolishes this food.
Most dry cat foods in Australia are “All Life Stages” so cater for kittens. It’s only the bigger manufacturers who offer formulas targeted directly at kittens.
What food isn’t super premium these days though, you’ve got Aldi calling their brand super premium when clearly it’s not, I wish they would just do away with the names their confusing people with it and then instead of buying good food they buy trash because it has super premium written on the front of the bag and they don’t check the back at all.
Sadly this “premium” baloney which in turn lead to “super premium” baloney, appears to be specifically designed to confuse and mislead, so the marketing types probably consider this to be mission accomplished. I assume we can look forward to UltraPremium, HyperPremium, SuperDuperPremium and UberPremium at this rate. Presumably even the companies who don’t wish to participate in this sort of marketing deception are forced to play along, lest they lose sales to the sleazier outfits.
It’s like an arms race of bulltish.
100%!
100% correct!
Oh ultra premium exists alright nothing after that though, I think pet barn uses it or used it, I would have to check to see if they still do.
I wasn’t so fussed seeing the “super premium” label as inbelieve that to be absolute dribble anyway, they market Advance as a super premium and it’s basically fillers. All I was worried about was is this classified as all life stages food and the answer was yes. I will bump up the protein with raw meat and she will be fine. I had a dog growing up who was fed PAL and never had any health issues. Lived happy to 16 years old too
PAL is now Pedigree so the brand is still around and still has the biggest amount of likes of any pet food manufacturer on Facebook at like 1.3m and also the one that continues to go unchanged ingredient wise and continues to promote their food on their ugly a$$ website :p as the best food ever.
At the very least Purina is trying some formula changes, but I feel they shouldn’t have reformulated Beneful but instead just got rid of it altogether and instead brought out a whole new line of food to take over that brand, only I know they’d rather spend their billions elsewhere.
Hello can i feed my 11 week old kitten Applaws its all good ocean fish with salmon? Or does it need to say kitten on it. There were no kitten ones at the store?
Usually the reasoning behind kitten and puppy formulas is because their growing up so they require higher amounts of meat and nutrients then adult pets and can sometimes grow up wrongly so to speak causing unecessary future problems.
I checked the Australian website for Applaws and they don’t appear to have the kitten formula at all and yet there’s a website I’ve never heard of before selling it, not sure what to think of that.
They are missing a lot of formulas on pet warehouse, but their sales aren’t great and so I don’t see a point of them bringing in more food that hardly anyone will buy unless it’s on special.
Might be worth trying another brand of kitten food one that’s not disappearing from shelves.
The kitten formula is on the overseas market. Also of note is the overseas markets (US, UK) foods are 80% mean 20% vegetable
Or they could simply be 4% or even no meat what so ever, I wish they had a general rule for dog and cat food to at the very least contain 25% meat except when it comes down to obvious vegetarian recipes, I’ve seen some UK foods off of the asda website itself stating 4% meat and was saddened to say the least.
I think I misunderstood that but I want to write it anyways.
I’ve seen a lot of 80/20 foods in the 5 years of research that I did and they always seemed so delicious ingredient wise, not to say Australia doesn’t have a range of good food but America definitely has more ingredient choices.
I just rescued two 10 week old kittens and noticed that there isn’t many kitten food options in the supermarket. At first we were feeding the whiskers kitten pouches wet food which they were happy to eat. I noticed that they didn’t have a good rating then started feeding them the app laws wet food tins for kittens and must say just looking at the food you can see applaws was way better quality. The kitten were happy with the change they are not fussy. However I noticed that they were making stinky farts once they changed to the applaws!!?? I am confused since appllaws clearly is much better than the whiskers!? Does this mean they have tummy upsets since they both got gas from it!?
Also just wondering about milk , whiskers is the only brand for kitty milk, is it bad to give human milk?
Cats are lactose intolerant so if you give milk you can’t give them normal Human milk. You could give them a lactose free milk which I bought for my cat once instead of whiskers. I found the whiskers kitty milk is a lot creamier in texture like our full cream milk, where as the lactose free milk is thinner like skim milk and my cat didn’t seem to like it as much.
Hi Moe, changing from one food to another can often cause temporary digestive issues. It can take a week or two for them to adjust to the new food.
Feeding a cat normal milk isn’t recommended. Cats don’t really need any form of milk in their diet, but it can be considered a treat.
I don’t feed my four cats dry food as a meal, raw food and canned food, but sometimes if they feel hungry, I may give them a very small amount. My latest additional to our family is still a kitten of 5 months, unfortunately before I took him he was fed Optimum kitten food. I am trying to put him on Applaws , but they don’t have kitten version. Would you recommend it or I need to look for something else?
I’d recommend feeding a kitten or all life stages food, so Applaws isn’t the answer for dry food. They do have a wet kitten food though.
Hey there, my cats absolutely LOVE this food, and I have to say it is the best I have seen in terms of quality. I feed my cats the little plastic Chicken Breast with Duck and Rice 60g containers and they just love them. To be honest, I think if you put this food in front of a human, they would possibly eat it and not even know the difference, it just looks like pure shreds of chicken, duck and rice, no jelly like grossness like you see in many cat food brands.
I really hope to see Applaws start releasing these in bulk packages as well as individual servings, as it might make it easier to stock up and maybe more cost effective!
Hi Eleanore, it’s worth noting Applaws wet products are for supplemental feeding alongside a dry diet. They’re not a balanced diet on their own.
Thank you, that’s good to hear. I’ve tried both the regular and grain free Blackhawke and Ivory Coat dog bics, and she wouldn’t eat the Blackhawke at all, and the Ivory Coat kibble was too big for her to manage. I even contacted Ivory Coat to see if they plan on ever making a smaller kibble, but at the moment as their only a small family run business they don’t plan on it. The only dog food that seems small enough for her is Purina, and although she’ll eat it, I know it’s not very good quality. She will steal the cats Applaws though, so I was hoping it would be ok to feed it to her.
Would it be ok to feed this cat food to a very small chihuahua? My little dog is extremely fussy and also has trouble chewing dog kibble as most are too large for her to manage. I’ve checked the ingredients of both the dog and cat food in the applaws and find them to be very similar, although the protein is much higher in the cat food which I think would make the cat food preferrable.
Hi Michelle, yes you’ll be fine feeding Applaws cat food to your Chihuahua. The additional protein won’t do any harm, and cat foods are often formulated better with a greater meat content (although tend to cost more accordingly).
Have just found a number of blue and green bits of plastic baked in to the biscuits. This is the first time I have purchased this brand.
Hi Bethany, I’ve been made aware of a bad batch – they had a faulty piece of equipment. Definitely don’t feed the food, notify the store where you bought it (and get a refund), and also contact Applaws. They’ll need to know the store and expiry date so they can recall other stock.
First I would like to say that I really like your reviews and they have helped me in finding good quality food for my cats when I have needed to change brand due to a lot of brands being randomly out of stock during COVID times. So a big applaw to you
In regard to Applaws cat food, I believe they might have updated their recipe since this review and the protein and fat content is now lower and there is pea starch and tapioca starch high up on the ingredient list. I reckon it’s probably still one of the best brands on the super market shelves but score might have decreased a bit with this change?