salmon oil

What it is

Salmon oil is a named fish oil rich in the long-chain omega-3 fatty acids EPA and DHA, which support skin, coat, joint comfort, and early brain and eye development. "Named" is the operative word: you know which fish it came from.

Why it's in pet food

Omega-3s are one of the few supplement classes with broad veterinary consensus behind them, and oils are the efficient way to deliver them. A named oil also signals a supply chain the brand is willing to put on the label.

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.

Salmon oil is on the engine's whole-foods bonus list: 2 points on the ingredient-quality pillar when it appears in the top twelve ingredients (the whole-foods bonus caps at 8 points per label). Because the species is named, it avoids the 10-point deduction that generic "fish oil" takes for unnamed fish sourcing.

Read the full methodology

Foods that list salmon oil

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

• Whisker & Pine Free-Run Chicken & Sweet Potato Recipe94
• Copperfield Cats Kitten Heritage Chicken & Oat Recipe93
• Meadow Farms Chicken & Oatmeal Puppy93
• Open Farm Harvest Chicken & Ancient Grains Recipe93
• Open Farm Large Breed Grain-Free RawMix93
• Open Farm Large Breed RawMix with Ancient Grains93
• Open Farm Small Breed Chicken & Turkey Recipe93
• Open Farm Wild-Caught Salmon Dry Cat Food93

Sources

• WSAVA Global Nutrition Committee — Selecting a pet food

Related ingredients

• pork fat
• poultry fat
• safflower oil
• sardine oil
• soybean oil
• sunflower oil

Further reading

• Calories on the label: kcal, ME and fair comparisons
• Storing pet food so it stays the food you bought