Meat by-products in pet food — what it is and how it scores

What it is

Meat by-products are non-muscle tissues of unspecified mammals — organs, trim, connective tissue — common in budget canned foods. "Meat" names no species and "by-products" names no tissue mix, so the label commits to nothing checkable.

Why it's in pet food

It is among the least expensive animal-tissue terms a formulator can print, and organ tissue does carry real nutrients. The reader's problem is not nutrition — it is that neither the animal nor the mix is knowable, this bag or the next.

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.

"Meat" names no species: meat by-products take the ingredient-quality pillar's 20-point unnamed-source deduction, once for the class no matter how many unnamed terms the label carries. The zero-point by-products informational note also displays — the engine deducts for the anonymity, never for the tissue type.

Read the full methodology

Common questions

Answers come from this entry and the scoring rules above — reviewed before publish, like everything else on this page. For anything about your own pet, your vet knows best.

What are meat by-products in pet food?

Non-muscle tissues of unspecified mammals — organs, trim, connective tissue — common in budget canned foods. "Meat" names no species and "by-products" names no tissue mix, so the label commits to nothing checkable.

Are meat by-products bad for cats and dogs?

The reader's problem is not nutrition — organ tissue does carry real nutrients. It is that neither the animal nor the mix is knowable, this bag or the next: anonymous twice over. That anonymity is what Bowlmark prices.

How does Bowlmark score meat by-products?

"Meat" names no species: meat by-products take the ingredient-quality pillar's 20-point unnamed-source deduction, once for the class no matter how many unnamed terms the label carries. The zero-point by-products informational note also displays — the engine deducts for the anonymity, never for the tissue type.

Foods that list meat by-products

Ranked by score where scores exist. Placement here is never sold.

Compare foods that list meat by-products

Same species, same form, both scored — closest scores first, so the comparison is a real one.

Scan a food yourself Browse every comparison

Sources

Cite this page

Bowlmark. "Meat by-products in pet food — what it is and how it scores." https://www.bowlmark.com/ingredient/meat-by-products

Engine: Methodology engine v1.1.0 · config 13c99e2f
Verified: Last verified August 22, 2026

No stored score to stamp yet — the engine and config above are the ones a scan runs today.

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