Chum Dog Food Review

The price of dog food has risen a lot in recent years and in 2024 we’re really feeling the pinch. Even budget brands like Chum feel expensive, and this is a budget brand.

The first warning sign with the Chum wet dog foods is the last ingredient – colouring agents. Do you think wet dog food is coloured to make it look pretty to your dog, or look more attractive to you?

Most of the time food colourings are used in budget pet foods to make them look more like meat, when that often isn’t the case.

As for the Chum dry dog food, Chum “So Crrrrunchy”, you’ll find the main ingredient – for your meat-loving pooch – is cereal and cereal by-products.

Do you think that’s healthy for your dog?

In the Chum dog food review we’ll cover how you’re misled by the marketing, and I assume you don’t like being misled, and then we’ll look at the wet and dry Chum dog food formulas.

Then you can decide if you want to feed Chum to your four-legged chum!

Chum dog food review

What the marketing says

You’ll find claims on the Chum cans like “MEAT as the #1 ingredient”, but this is a marketing trick to make you think meat is the main ingredient.

In reality, the 2nd and 3rd ingredients, perhaps a few more, outweigh the meat significantly. Usually none of those ingredients sounds as appealing.

You’ll also note all the recipes are “With Lamb”, “With chicken”, “With 3 Meats”. What you don’t know is the word with is regulated by the Australian Standards for Manufacturing and marketing of pet food, and translates to not very much at all.

As for the dry foods, you’ll find they’re labelled something like “Beef, Bone & Vegetable Flavour“, and that’s worse than the word with. It means there just needs to be a little tiny bit of those ingredients in the food.

Just a trace.

In fact, when you compare the formulas of different cans, they’re all pretty much the same, just labelled differently to make you think you’re giving your dog a yummy variety.

Chum dry dog food may seem well priced for the 20kg bags, but when you consider the ingredients you may realise you’re not getting much for your money.

What the ingredients really say about Chum wet dog foods

Here are the ingredients of Chum With Lamb:

Meats (chicken &/or beef &/or lamb &/or sheep &/or pork); gelling agents; vegetable fibre; vitamins & minerals; amino acid; colouring agents.

And here’s Chum With Chicken:

Meats (chicken &/or beef &/or sheep &/or pork); gelling agents; vegetable fibre; vitamins & minerals; colouring agents; amino acid.

Despite a few differences in wording they’re pretty much identical, aren’t they?

Pay attention to the 2nd and 3rd ingredients, as these are likely big chunks of the formula. You may wonder what Gelling agents are, especially as they haven’t been open and honest about what they’ve used. This is the gunky jelly stuff in the can, and could be some form of gelatin or carrageenan, both come with concerns as ingredients in dog food.

Many decent dog foods tell you what vegetables have been included, or beet pulp, but with Chum wet food we’re simply told “vegetable fibre”. Usually when a pet food manufacturer puts something ambiguous on the label, it means you wouldn’t find the truth appealing.

There isn’t anything positive I can say about the remaining 3 ingredients.

Vitamins & minerals will be a premix (powder) and likely the cheapest inclusion to meet the regulations for “complete and balanced”. All complete and balanced dog foods have this as a bare minimum.

Same is likely the case for “amino acid” as another meaningless ambiguous ingredient. What amino acid?

Then, finally, colouring agents, which aren’t for the benefit of your dog.

What the ingredients really say about Chum dry dog foods

You’ll find vegetables in the Chum dry dog food, but laughably after salt.

Let’s say salt is 1% of the recipe, and that means less than 1% of the recipe is vegetables. Not that we know what those vegetables are, or if they’re beneficial for our dog.

There’s only two ingredients before salt, and the main inclusion is something you don’t really want to feed your dog – cereal and cereal by-products (wheat, sorghum &/or barley).

If your dog has itchy skin, rashes, or other symptoms of dietary sensitivities, then you can bet it’s this main ingredient in Chum dry dog food that causes it.

Oh, and if you still decide to feed your dog the Chum dry food and next year they’re overweight and lethargic, well that would be why.

Thankfully there’s some mashup of meat products which account for the sadly lacking protein and fat in Chum, but can you imagine they’re good quality cuts of meat?

I wouldn’t feed Chum to my dog, regardless of how cheap it is. I realise for many it’s hard to afford any better, so if this is all you can afford try boosting your dog’s health with some real meat/mince, organs, raw meaty bones, eggs, and some sardines as well – much better nutrition for your money.

I wouldn’t recommend feeding Chum dog food, dry or wet, to your dog. I don’t find it very good at all.

Where to buy

If you still want to buy Chum dog food, you will find it at various retailers.

Ingredients

The ingredients of the Chum With Beef wet dog food:

Meats (chicken &/or beef &/or lamb &/or sheep &/or pork); gelling agents; vegetable fibre; vitamins & minerals; amino acid; colouring agents.

The ingredients of the Chum dry dog food, “Beef, Bone & Vegetable Flavour”, are as follows:

Cereal and cereal by-products (wheat, sorghum &/or barley); meat and meat by-products (beef, chicken &/or lamb); salt; vegetables; minerals (including potassium, calcium, iron, zinc, copper and phosphorus); vitamins (including A, B6, B12, D3, E, thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, folic acid, pantothenic acid and choline); methionine and antioxidants.