Canagan Information
Canagan is a premium pet food brand based in the United Kingdom and one which has seen significant growth in recent years. The brand was launched in 2012 by Eddie Milbourne who had notable experience as a pet food distributor for an American pet food brand.
Like many other brands in recent years, Canagan is focusing on providing excellent nutrition from high-quality ingredients. In addition, Canagan is a grain-free exclusive brand.
Due to its high-quality ingredients and impressive nutrition, Canagan is not a cheap brand, especially for larger dogs. However, Canagan does combat this by only requiring smaller portions.
The ability to provide the same required nutrition but in smaller portions is because its high-quality meat and fish ingredients make it very calorie-dense.
Canagan is sold by a large number of independent and small pet stores, as well as by popular online retailers in the UK. Some of their products are also sold by Amazon.
Canagan Product Range
Dog Food
Canagan has a large range of dog food products. This range includes traditional dry dog food, dog treats, and canned dog food.
Many of the dry dog food recipes have equivalent canned food recipes. This could allow dog owners to easily provide similar recipes of both varieties that they know that their dogs will be able to eat and enjoy.
You may notice a lack of puppy recipes within Canagan’s product range. But fear not, Canagans recipes are designed to be suitable for all life stages. This means that Canagan does not need to produce puppy specific formulas, and dog owners do not need to worry about transitioning their dogs once they grow up.
Cat Food
Canagans cat food range is equally as large as their dog food range. It also includes dry cat food and canned/wet cat food. However, the dry cat food range is smaller than the dry dog food range, whereas the canned/wet cat food range is far larger.
This is positive as cats are better suited to a wet/canned diet than one entirely made up of dry food.
Canagan Nutrition
Dog Food
The nutrition provided by Canagan dog food is excellent and significantly above average.
This includes significantly above average proportions of protein and fat and modest proportions of carbohydrates. In addition, many of their recipes contain an excellent quantity of the Omega 3 and 6 Fatty Acids. These fatty acids are believed to provide a number of health benefits.
Below is an example of the nutrition provided by a Canagan recipe.
Cat Food
The nutrition provided by Canagan cat food is also significantly above average.
While the dry cat food recipes do include a portion of carbohydrates, it is far lower than most dry cat food and somewhat acceptable.
The nutrition provided by Canagan wet cat food is excellent and is ideally suited to a cat’s diet. It includes virtually no plant-based content and generous portions of protein and fat.
Canagan Ingredients
Canagan is proud to support British farmers where possible. As a consequence, the vast majority of their ingredients are sourced from within the UK, including meat ingredients like Beef, Lamb, and Chicken.
High-Quality Meat & Fish Ingredients
- Beef
- Lamb
- Duck
- Chicken
- Turkey
- Salmon
- Herring
- Venison
- Wild Boar
- Rabbit
As you can see above, Canagan makes use of a very large range of high-quality meat and fish ingredients. This list includes some of the regulars such as Chicken and Beef, but also some less common ingredients such as Venison, Rabbit, and Duck.
Ingredients such as Venison, Rabbit, and Duck can often be used in dog food designed for dogs with allergies and sensitivities. This type of approach is known as a novel meat diet.
Learn more about novel meat diets and hypoallergenic dog food in our article Best Hypoallergenic Dog Foods Guide.
Alternatively, you can check out our articles that specifically discuss Venison and Rabbit – Best Dog Foods With Venison & Best Dog Foods With Rabbit.
Other Notable Ingredients
Salmon Oil is a straightforward ingredient. It is the oil that is extracted from Salmon during processing. Often dog foods only include the processed fish meal and not the oil. This means they lose out on the fantastic benefits offered by this oil, such as the Omega 3 Fatty Acids.
Alfalfa is not a commonly known or understood ingredient. It is closely related to legumes such as Peas. However, Alfalfa isn’t used in the same manner that legumes are and is added to pet food to provide additional or supplementary benefits such as vitamins and minerals.
Learn more about Alfalfa in our article Alfalfa In Dog Food.
Sunflower Oil is one of the two most common vegetable oils used in pet food, the other being Canola Oil. Sunflower Oil is used in pet food to improve its palatability, add additional fat, and provide beneficial fatty acids.
Learn more about Sunflower Oil in our article Sunflower Oil In Dog Food.
Canagan uses both Pea Protein & Potato Protein in their recipes. Normally, this would be cause for alarm as these ingredients are considered to be low-quality.
They are often used to boost the overall level of protein in a dog food recipe or in combination with other ingredients in a sinister technique known as Ingredient Splitting.
Learn more about Ingredient Splitting in our article Ingredient Splitting in Pet Food – Exposed.
However, Canagan uses very small portions of these ingredients. For this reason, we are not overly concerned about their inclusion, even if we would prefer that they were absent.
Canagan Animal Testing
We are happy to inform you that Canagan does not participate in any form of animal testing. They make the following statement on their website.
“We do not participate in any form of invasive animal testing. Our recipes are trialed on the pets owned by our family members, friends, and selected breeders. All these pets lead their normal everyday happy lives!
We will never fund or participate in any invasive animal testing or research.”
We strongly believe that invasive or laboratory-style testing of animals is a cruel and outdated practice, and one which we hope will be significantly reduced or eliminated.
Canagan Recalls
Based on our research (FDA, AVMA, DogFoodAdvisor), Canagan is a recall-free brand.
This is a positive indicator and shows that Canagan takes the Safety and Quality of their manufacturing process seriously.
However, we encourage you to be on the lookout for future recalls of Canagan or any other pet food by checking reputable recall tracking sites.
Canagan Featured Articles
Best Dog Food In The UK – In this article, we go in-depth to review a range of dog food brands available in the UK. Canagan earns itself a place in our recommendations thanks to its excellent nutrition and use of high-quality ingredients.
Best Cat Food In The UK – Similar to the above article on dog food, this article discusses cat food that can be bought in the UK. Canagan is once again a leader in this space and earns itself a recommendation from us.
Best of Canagan
Scottish Salmon Review
While all of Canagans dry dog food recipes are very enticing, we had to choose our favorite, and Scottish Salmon came out ahead as the clear winner.
The recipe uses a large portion of Whole Salmon, Dried Salmon, and Salmon Oil. In addition, it also contains Herring, Trout, and Whitefish.
This combination provides an extremely satisfactory proportion of fish-based protein and fat, which is perfect for a dog’s diet.
What makes Scottish Salmon come out ahead compared to the other Canagan formulas is the extraordinary level of the Omega 3 Fatty Acids it can provide.
The formula contains 2.64% of the Omega 3 Fatty Acids, which is more than five times what most dog food formulas contain.
The formula doesn’t just contain fish and also has a moderate portion of Sweet Potatoes, Peas, and White Potatoes. These combine to provide a modest portion of carbohydrates and dietary fiber.
British Beef Review
While we could have followed our choice of Canagan’s best dry dog food and also chosen a Salmon-based formula as our favorite canned recipe. However, instead, we decided to go with their Beef-centred formula – British Beef.
We did this as we are big fans of the sensible and satisfactory mix of Whole Beef and Organic Vegetables used in this recipe.
Beef makes up 65% of the ingredients by weight, which means there is a satisfactory proportion of protein and fat present.
However, the remaining content is split up between Organic Sweet Potatoes, Organic Carrots, Organic Peas, and Organic Broccoli.
This mix of vegetables is sure to provide a modest portion of carbohydrates with a low-glycemic index.
Free-Range Chicken Review
We sided with a safe choice on our choice of dry cat food in Free Range Chicken.
This dry cat food recipe contains a very generous portion of Chicken ingredients, including Dried Chicken, Deboned Chicken, and Chicken Fat. This combination provides an extremely high proportion of protein and fat, perfect for cats.
The small portions of plant-based content included in the formula are Sweet Potatoes and White Potatoes.
While neither of these ingredients is ideal for a cat’s diet, the portion is small enough that it is not worthy of concern.
Chicken With Salmon Review
With such a huge range of wet cat food products available, it was difficult to lock down a particular recipe.
In addition, many of the formulas provide identical nutrition from very similar ingredients. Despite this, we decided to go with the Chicken and Salmon recipe.
The recipe only contains five ingredients, which is a vast improvement on many of its competitors, which often contain dozens of individual ingredients.
The core ingredients are Chicken, Chicken Broth, and Salmon. These provide a generous proportion of protein and fat.
The only other ingredients are Tapioca and Sunflower Oil. Tapioca is used as a thickening agent to give the food a consistent texture and is not present to provide nutrition.
Canagan Full Product Range
Dry Dog Food
Highland Feast
Free Run Turkey Dental
Scottish Salmon
Free Range Chicken
Country Game
Grass Fed Lamb
Small Breed Free Range Chicken
Small Breed Country Game
Large Breed Free Range Chicken
Light / Senior Free Range Chicken
Wet/Canned Dog Food
Free Run Chicken
Country Game
British Beef
Welsh Lamb
Chicken Hotpot
Shepherds Pie
Turkey & Duck Dinner
Salmon & Herring Supper
Senior Feast
Venison & Wild Boar Stew
Chicken & Wild Boar Casserole
Puppy Feast
Dog Treats
Chicken Biscuit Bakes
Salmon Biscuit Bakes
Game Biscuit Bakes
Dry Cat Food
Light / Senior For Cats
Country Game
Scottish Salmon
Free Range Chicken
Wet/Canned Cat Food
Chicken & Herring
Chicken & Duck
Chicken & Turkey
Chicken & Salmon
Chicken For Seniors
Chicken For Kittens
Free Run Chicken
Chicken With Prawns
Tuna With Salmon
Tuna With Crab
Chicken With Crab
Chicken With Duck
Tuna With Chicken
Tuna With Mussels
Chicken With Beef
Chicken With Ham
Chicken With Seabass
Chicken With Sardine
Chicken With Salmon
Chicken With Vegetables
Fresh Chicken
Ocean Tuna
Tuna With Prawns
Fabulous food , it just became far too expensive for my budget .A real shame.
My two cats are very fussy and will only eat Canagan dry. All flavours. However one of them has mouth issues so we’re trying them on the Turkey dental which they eat gladly. However they seem to eat a bit more so I’m wondering if the balance has changed. I must look at the ingredients. However I would like it to be in other flavours, game and salmon were my cats preferred…….or maybe mine if you know what I mean😏☺.