corn flour
Corn flour is the fraction game's opening move — milled corn that counts toward the splitting rule and the first-ingredient deduction alike.
Also appears on labels as: maize flour
What it is
Finely milled corn — the whole kernel or degermed endosperm ground to powder. Nutritionally it's corn: digestible starch, modest protein, the yellow workhorse of budget formulation.
Why it's in pet food
Binding and energy at commodity price. The word 'flour' also does list work: milling corn into named fractions lets each rank lower than the sum would — the disclosure pattern the splitting rule exists to price.
How Bowlmark scores it
Scores are deterministic math over the printed label — the rules below apply to every product identically, and nothing estimates or fills in a blank.
Two mechanics: any corn-worded entry counts toward the CORN splitting base (three or more in the top 8 → the single −12), and corn wording as the FIRST ingredient of a dry formula takes the cheap-grain deduction (−10 dog / −14 cat). Corn flour mid-list alone is unremarkable; corn flour leading, or flanked by corn gluten meal and corn bran, is the pattern speaking.
Foods that list corn flour
Ranked by score where scores exist. Placement here is never sold.
Sources
Related ingredients
Further reading
Cite this page
Bowlmark. "Corn flour in pet food — what it is and how it scores." https://www.bowlmark.com/ingredient/corn-flour
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- Last verified August 12, 2026
No stored score to stamp yet — the engine and config above are the ones a scan runs today.