Hub · Friskies alternatives
Friskies pâté lands around the mid-6s on our rubric, and so does almost every canned cat food. The real lever on the score is not a fancier can; it is format. Here are the wet alternatives that edge it out, and the dry foods that score a lot higher, ranked.
Friskies Surfin’ & Turfin’ pâté scores about 6.6 on the PetScored rubric. In our view that is a fair result for one of the cheapest cans on the shelf: it posts a strong feline nutrition fit mark and a top sensitivity-risk score, and gives up points on ingredient clarity.
The more important point is why the number sits in the 6s at all. Nearly every canned cat food we score lands in the 6s, and the reason is the Value sub-score. Wet food costs far more per 1,000 kcal than dry, so canned recipes cap near the bottom on Value, most around 2 of 10, regardless of recipe. Friskies is already one of the cheapest cans going, so there is little room to buy a better value score with a different can. The list below is the proof.
Filter: canned cat food, not Friskies, scoring near or above Friskies’ best can. Rank: composite score, one recipe per brand.
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Sheba
$13.17 / 1,000 kcal · 998% above median
A single-serve wet entree with chicken named first and taurine declared, useful for portion control. Poultry by-products and animal plasma sit high on the panel, and caramel color is a cosmetic additive our clarity scoring does not credit.
Tiny Tiger
$10.98 / 1,000 kcal · 815% above median
A budget pate where declared taurine and an all-life-stages statement are the strongest points. The tradeoff, in our view, is meat by-products and fish high in the formula and modest ingredient transparency.
Fancy Feast
$9.89 / 1,000 kcal · 724% above median
A budget pâté with salmon named first and taurine declared, useful as a high-moisture option. The label leans on liver and meat by-products, artificial color including Red 3, and sodium nitrite, which our Ingredient Clarity dimension marks down even as the protein source reads well.
ZIWI Peak
$22.15 / 1,000 kcal · 691% above median
One of the most species-appropriate wet recipes in the catalog: whole chicken with named organs, bone, and cartilage in a high-moisture can, with green mussel and declared taurine. A single primary protein keeps the trigger count low; the steep price per calorie is the only real tradeoff.
Made by Nacho
$21.39 / 1,000 kcal · 664% above median
A chicken-and-organ kitten pâté with declared taurine and high moisture. The tradeoff, in our view, is premium per-calorie pricing and salmon oil placing fish among the listed ingredients.
Tiki Cat
$32.63 / 1,000 kcal · 1065% above median
Meat-forward structure with organ meats up front and taurine explicitly declared. Weaker dimension is value - small-can premium wet format gets expensive per calorie.
Weruva
$34.61 / 1,000 kcal · 1136% above median
Good label transparency, declared taurine, very high moisture. Catch is calorie density: premium price for a fairly low-calorie can.
Read the spread honestly: the wet-to-wet gains are small. Sheba Perfect Portions and Tiny Tiger reach about 6.9, Fancy Feast and ZIWI Peak about 6.7, all sitting in the band the Value penalty pins them to. Premium pâtés like Tiki Cat and Weruva score similarly on composite, in the low-to-mid 6s, but win on ingredient clarity, so a cleaner, more transparent label is where the real difference shows up, even when the headline number does not move much. Comparing the two grocery staples directly? See our Fancy Feast alternatives hub and the Fancy Feast vs Friskies head-to-head.
The cat foods that score meaningfully higher are dry: Iams ProActive Health at 8.1, Purina ONE Tender Selects at 7.8, and Solid Gold Indoor at 7.8. They rate higher mostly on value: dry food costs far less per 1,000 kcal, so the same sub-score that holds wet food in the 6s lifts kibble several points.
That is a real tradeoff, not a free upgrade. Cats tend to under-drink, so a dry-fed cat needs a deliberate water plan, more bowls, a fountain, or some wet food in the rotation, to keep intake up. We work through that choice in our note on cats, water, and wet food, and you can browse the two sides directly: best dry cat food and best wet cat food. If you want to read a label like we do first, see how to read a cat food label, or browse the full scored set on the cat food hub.
FAQ
In our view, it is a competent, very inexpensive grocery wet food. Friskies pâté scores about 6.6, held down, like nearly all canned cat food, by the Value sub-score, since wet food costs far more per 1,000 kcal than dry. It posts a strong feline nutrition profile and a top sensitivity-risk mark, and loses ground on ingredient clarity. Defensible and cheap; just not top of the class.
Not by much among wet foods: Sheba Perfect Portions and Tiny Tiger reach about 6.9, and Fancy Feast and ZIWI Peak canned about 6.7. Premium pâtés like Tiki Cat and Weruva score similarly on composite, in the low-to-mid 6s, but win on ingredient clarity. The real jump is dry food: Iams ProActive Health 8.1, Purina ONE Tender Selects 7.8, and Solid Gold Indoor 7.8.
On our rubric they are effectively tied: Friskies pâté scores about 6.6 and Fancy Feast Classic Pâté about 6.5 to 6.7, both pinned by the same wet-food Value penalty. Fancy Feast carries a hair more brand-trust signal; Friskies posts a marginally lower sensitivity-risk profile. We ran the head-to-head, and the difference is small either way.
Because price is only one of five dimensions. Being cheap helps the Value sub-score, but it cannot fully escape the wet-food penalty, since every can runs high per 1,000 kcal next to kibble. Friskies' solid nutrition and sensitivity marks keep it mid-pack; the low price keeps it from scoring worse, not from scoring great.
Not on a score alone, in our view. If your cat is thriving and you value the hydration wet food adds, the gap between Friskies and the higher-rated dry foods is largely a Value gap, not a verdict on your cat. Any health concern is a question for your veterinarian, not a rubric.
