Every product we score, in one tier list.

It is not ranked by hand at all. Every product on this page carries the same composite score shown on its scorecard, computed by a deterministic engine under a published rubric, and the bands are fixed cuts on that score: Strong is 8.5 and up, Good is 7.5 to 8.4, Mixed is 6.5 to 7.4, Limited is below 6.5. Those are the same cuts behind the band bars on every category hub. The scores are our opinion under the methodology, the methodology is public, and when the catalog or the rubric changes, this page re-renders with it.

Because no food label currently gives the rubric everything it asks for at once. The highest food composite on the site today is 8.4, and the structural reason is visible in the sub-scores: Ingredient Clarity tops out at 7 of 10 across every food we score, because the final points are reserved for source-verified disclosures (country of manufacture, an identifiable manufacturer, a disclosed facility or co-packer) that no scored recipe has earned yet. Add the Value check, which prices every food per 1,000 kcal and pushes back hardest on the premium end of the shelf, and 8.5 becomes a bar a food can only clear with a fully named label, a clean brand record, and a fair price at the same time. Nothing we have scored does all of that yet. When a recipe does, it will appear there automatically.

No. The bands grade what a label discloses, what the brand's public record shows, and what the product costs for what it delivers, under our rubric. They do not measure safety, contamination risk, or how any individual dog or cat will do on the product, and none of this is veterinary advice. A Limited product is one where, in our view, you are being asked to pay without being told enough. Open its scorecard to see exactly which checks it missed, and if a veterinarian prescribed the product, that decision belongs with your vet, not with a band.

They share the same 0 to 10 composite and the same band cuts, but each category has its own rubric: food is scored on nutrition fit, brand trust, ingredient clarity, sensitivity risk, and value; supplements on evidence quality and delivered dose; treats on label clarity, caloric honesty, and claim honesty. That is why this page groups tiers within category. 19 treats reach Strong while no food does, and that is not because treats are better than food. It is because a single-ingredient treat can fully satisfy a treat rubric, while a complete diet has far more places to lose points.

Two reasons, and they look the same from the outside. Some brands we simply have not scored yet; the catalog grows in verified batches. A few others are on an explicit hold, The Farmer's Dog among them, because their format does not fit our source model cleanly enough to verify, and we hold a score rather than publish a number we cannot defend. That is a limitation on our side, not a verdict on those products. The refused page explains what we decline to score and why.

Yes, and that is the point of generating this page from the engine instead of writing it by hand. Scores move when the underlying data moves: a re-verified label, a price change large enough to shift the value check, a recall entering a brand's record, or a rubric refinement logged in the methodology changelog. When a composite crosses 8.5, 7.5, or 6.5, the product changes bands here on the next build, and the what's changed feed logs score movements as they happen.