ProBalance is essentially a home brand (or phantom brand) of Petbarn (also available at City Farmers). The packaging looks very professional in a style you wouldn’t look out of place on the shelves of a veterinary clinic, but what do the ingredients and guaranteed analysis really tell us?
Let’s dive in…
The food is a moderate 25% protein, 14% fat, and we can guestimate around 40% carbohydrates. If we assume Beef Tallow as the 5th ingredient is the 14% fat content, and everything beneath it is a very small percentage (i.e. Salt will be approx. 1%), then that means the top four ingredients amount to around 80%, possibly more.
Pet food ingredients are listed in order of percentage, which in this case is poultry meal, sorghum, rice, and field peas. With pet foods we can often assume they’ve formulated the product in such a way to make it look as great as possible on the label, which is why the meat ingredient is top of the list. In reality it’s possible for all four of these ingredients to be in equal amounts, which could mean sorghum (20%), rice (20%), and field peas (20%) amount to the bulk of the product. If the ingredients were listed as Sorghum, Rice, Field Peas, Poultry Meal, Beef Tallow, then you wouldn’t have the same impression. Marketing!!
The label does say 68% of protein from meat, which means the rest of the protein comes from the other ingredients. This would suggest a bias towards meat rather than peas, but we can still deduce the approx. 40% carbs comes mostly from the sorghum and rice.
To add a positive point there are no glaring nasties in the food and it’s preserved naturally. There aren’t any artificial colours, flavours, or artificial preservatives. That’s a good thing and goes a long way, as cheaper foods with those inclusions are very likely damaging over the long term.
All in all it’s a moderate “safe” food. You need to be mindful with ProBalance you’ll be feeding your dog a lot of sorghum, rice, and peas, but you could counteract this by adding fresh foods or rotating with another brand.
Where to buy
You can buy ProBalance directly from Petbarn (or click and collect).
Ingredients
Poultry meal, Sorghum, Rice, Field Peas, Beef Tallow, Beet Pulp, Sunflower Oil, Salt, Vitamins & Minerals (Vitamins A, D3, E, K, C, B1, B2, Niacin, B5, B6, Folic Acid, Biotin, B12, Potassium, Magnesium, Zinc, Iron, Maganese, Copper, Iodine, Selenium), Fish Oil, DHA, Yeast Extract, L-Threonine, Lucerne Meal, Vegetable & Fruits (Tomato, Spinach, Pumpkin, Blueberry, Cranberry), Taurine, Yucca, Natural Antioxidant, Beta-Carotene, L-Carnitine, Kelp, Rosemary.
Your article stated that
“The label does say 68% of protein from meat, which means the rest of the protein comes from the other ingredients. This would suggest a bias towards meat rather than peas”
But you list only one CON which is “Bias towards sorghum, rice, and peas rather than meat” seems to contradict the statement posted earlier in the article.
There was a fair amount of assumption concerning the percentages of each of the top four ingredients. I guess one could just as easily assume that out of the top 4 ingredients, that meat products made up 70% and the other three 10% each. I agree that is not likely, but because it’s not listed specifically on the package and neither the writer nor myself actually contacted the manufacture, we really don’t know and as such should really make statements based on facts instead of a personal hypotheses.
Hi Casey,
I try and keep the reviews fairly short, but the calculations I use are more in depth and we can deduce a number of factors. Carbs are around 40% dry matter, which would come from sorghum, rice, and peas. That gives an indication of the bias towards those ingredients over meat – hence the “con”. When it comes to just the protein the bias is towards meat rather than peas – stated as 68%, the remaining protein will come from the sorghum, rice, and peas. Not accounting for moisture, rice and sorghum are largely carbohydrate, and peas around 1g of protein to 3g carbohydrate generically.
If you were to assume meat was 70% and the other three ingredients were 10%, that would mean 30% of the formula would result in 40% carbohydrates plus the remaining 32% protein from non-meat ingredients (100% – 68%). That isn’t possible.
Or to look at it another way – 68% protein from meat in a formula which is 25% protein would mean 17% of the product is protein from meat. 17% of the entire formula sounds much worse than stating “68% protein from meat” on the packet. Poultry meal is protein dense. If we assumed poultry meal was 100% protein this would suggest 17% of the formula is poultry meal, but realistically we would need to account for percentages of fat (as part of the 14% fat), ash, at perhaps a small percentage of moisture.
I’m not sure if that all makes sense?
My dog can be sensitive to rice, but this is great . I prefer it over royal canin or eukanaba now.
Both dogs love it, so it makes a difference no scratching, nice poos, calm brain! I have 2 GSDs.
Was recommended pro balance fish and salmon for lge Labradoodles who is scratching. Hasn’t changed, must be allergic to something in product.
The ocean fish flavour doesn’t have peas or any kind of legumes.