Here is the recipe behind every Panel Score, in full. No black boxes.
Every score is a number from 0 to 100 with a letter grade beside it. The bar takes the grade's color; the numbers never do.
| Grade | Score | Verdict | |
|---|---|---|---|
| A | 90-100 | Pretty good | |
| B | 75-89 | Good, check the flags | |
| C | 60-74 | Proceed with caution | |
| D | 50-59 | Better options exist | |
| F | 0-49 | We'd skip it |
Flags come from our ingredient library, 120 entries today, built from published research, FDA and AAFCO guidance, and toxicology data. Vague catch-alls like “animal digest” get flagged for opacity. Marketing words like “premium” and “natural” earn nothing.
| Line item | Points |
|---|---|
| Every product starts at | 96 |
| Each caution flagAn ingredient worth knowing about at typical doses. | -4 |
| Each avoid flagAn ingredient we would rather not buy. | -16 |
| Brand transparency gradeA, B, C or D. Brands we haven't graded yet take the C deduction. | -0 / -2 / -5 / -8 |
| A documented recallAttached from official recall notices, never inferred. | -4 |
PFAS, heavy metals, phthalates, and pathogens never appear on an ingredient panel, so the label score can't see them. They only surface through lab testing. Where real, published third-party results tie to a specific product, we show them on that product's page, separate from its score. Here's the landscape as it stands.
Peer-reviewed testing of dry dog foods (Frontiers in Veterinary Science, 2018) found that arsenic, cadmium, and mercury run highest in fish-based recipes, while lead runs highest in red-meat recipes. Most foods tested safe for chronic feeding, with occasional lead outliers. We surface this as context, not a per-product score, because it depends on ingredients we can read but levels we can't measure from a label.
Source: Kim, Loftus, et al., Frontiers in Veterinary Science →
A 2026 Clean Label Project screening of 79 top-selling dog foods reported that dry, air-dried, and freeze-dried products averaged multiples more lead, arsenic, mercury, and cadmium than fresh/frozen products. Full brand-by-brand numbers are not publicly published, so we don't attach specific values to specific products — but the dry-vs-fresh pattern is worth knowing.
Source: Clean Label Project →
The FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine routinely screens animal food for heavy metals, mycotoxins, pesticides, and dioxin. Its 2015–2017 report found none of 318 samples exceeded tolerable limits for cadmium or mercury. This is aggregate surveillance, not brand-level results.
Brands cannot sponsor us, preview scores, or request changes outside our public correction process. Our funding comes from optional reader memberships and clearly-labeled affiliate links on "cleaner picks", which never affect the number.
Spot an error? Every product page has a "dispute this score" link, and corrections are logged publicly.