Pet Food Reviews – The S.N.I.F.F. Test Methodology

We get it. Finding a food for your dog can be tough. With literally thousands of products on the market, it’s overwhelming. And we find that most pet food reviews are incomplete at best. Any many are simply wrong.

So, here’s what makes a pet food review on Mo Knows different. It’s something we call the  S.N.I.F.F. Test.

1. We actually purchase the food. None of the other websites with reviews do anything other than check out a brand’s website or maybe pictures of a bag. There’s only so much you can tell that way. We think you actually need to buy a product if you’re going to write a review about it.

2. Product is analyzed at an independent lab. We want to know if the guarantees on the bag are true. It’s one thing to say you have so much protein or fat in a product. But did it actually deliver?

3. Reviews are written by a board-certified nutritionist who is also a board-certified food scientist. Every other website reviewing pet food is done by another pet owner just like you. Not to say they haven’t learned a lot from reading things online, but we think if you are going to review a pet food, you should have the credentials to back it up.

4. We look at more than the ingredients. The ingredient panel only tells you so much. Pet (and human) bodies don’t need ingredients; they need specific nutrients found in those ingredients. And they need those in a certain balance and amount. Judging a food based on which ingredient is #1 or #21 on an ingredient panel barely scratches the surface.

Pet Food Reviews Done Better

Ultimately, a real pet food review can’t be focused on only one thing. And that’s why we developed our S.N.I.F.F Test.

We want to provide you with reviews that are impartial, consistent, fair, and most importantly, nutrition-based.

How We Decide On A Rating

But we didn’t stop there. We also wanted to make sure that our scoring methodology was unbiased and based on nutrition instead of a marketing position. You can make a healthy vegan dog food if you know a lot about nutrition, food science and have experience making foods. That doesn’t make a meat-first diet better or worse. You can formulate a product with or without grains and be healthy. You can feed raw, freeze-dried, kibble or canned. We’re not promoting any one type of diet or style of product. We’re promoting a deeper view of nutrition.

Our rating system doesn’t take branding or marketing positions into account. Instead we use a proprietary, unbiased 17-question scoring methodology to arrive at our rating (Bronze, Silver or Gold). This scoring method focuses on:

In addition to the rating, we also provide detailed information in each section of S.N.I.F.F. to help you understand the food at a deeper level. At Mo Knows, we want to provide you with reviews that are impartial, consistent, fair, and most importantly, nutrition-based. We believe by doing that, you’ll be better able to find the best possible food for your pet.

If you ever have questions about a food we’ve reviewed, we’d love to help. Drop us a comment below any review and we’ll happily answer your questions.