poultry by-products

By-product

Poultry by-products are unnamed-bird organs and frames — the version of by-products the engine deducts for. Here is exactly why.

Also appears on labels as: poultry by-product · poultry byproducts

What it is

Poultry by-products are the non-muscle parts of unspecified birds. Two uncertainties stack: "by-products" covers a changeable mix of tissues, and "poultry" covers a changeable mix of species. Chicken by-products resolve the second one; this term resolves neither.

Why it's in pet food

Maximum sourcing flexibility at minimum cost. The tissues can be perfectly nutritious — that is not the problem the label reader has. The problem is that nothing on the label commits the maker to anything specific.

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.

"Poultry" names no species, so poultry by-products take the ingredient-quality pillar's 20-point unnamed-source deduction — one deduction for the class regardless of how many unnamed terms appear. The zero-point by-products informational note also shows: the tissue type was never the issue; the anonymity is.

Read the full methodology

Foods that list poultry by-products

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

Sources

Further reading

Cite this page

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

Engine
Methodology engine v1.1.0 · config 13c99e2f
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Last verified August 9, 2026

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

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