When you want something done, you’ve got to do it yourself
A new editor just joined our team at Kitchen Critic, and they’ve been feeding their Dachsund Blue Buffalo dog food for 4 years. Naturally, this stirred up some debate in the office—so we decided to compare Ollie and Blue Buffalo, dog food legends that they are, to see how they stack up against one another. May the best meal(s) win.
Meet the Contestants
Ollie was founded with the belief that dogs should be treated like the family members they are—starting with mealtime. Their impressively high standards for canine cuisine have raised the bar for all of their competitors, as they use whole, human-grade ingredients to make their award-winning Fresh and Baked Recipes. Sounds like it can’t get any better, right? Wrong!
Ollie delivers the exact recipes and portions that your pup needs directly to your door, at a cadence that fits your schedule. Of course, if you prefer in-person shopping, Ollie food is available à la carte at Petco.
Then we have Blue Buffalo, which was founded in 2002 by a family whose pup (named Blue!) had been diagnosed with cancer. They were unable to find high-quality, natural food for him, so they took it upon themselves to make their own and the company was born. They’ve since expanded to both cat and dog food recipes, and their products are sold in Walmart, Petco, and PetSmart.
Leveling the Playing Field
Let’s first get the similarities out of the way. Both Ollie and Blue Buffalo share several noteworthy qualities:
- Recipes are developed with the help of veterinary nutritionists
- Food options steer clear of corn, wheat, soy, artificial flavors, and preservatives
- They incorporate supplemental vitamins and nutrients into their recipes
- Both websites offer a brief quiz that helps them curate a recommended menu for your dog
- Both brands offer treats
Of course, there are plenty of areas in which the two diverge…
Quality of Ingredients
This is arguably the most important category. Both Ollie and Blue Buffalo pledge to feed their pup customers like family members, but the only way to tell whether they deliver is to read all of the fine print. (We did it for you).
One differentiator that stuck with us is the use of animal by-product “meals,” which are about as appetizing as they sound. According to our research, “meal” in pet food is a blend of animal by-products (leftover bits not fit for human consumption) and sometimes even dead or diseased animals.
Because “meal” is an umbrella term, it’s impossible to know (or even estimate) the quality of the by-product used. Blue Buffalo promises no poultry or chicken by-product meals, but they do include plenty of other “meals”… Alligator, Beef, Duck, Herring, and Lamb (to name just a few).
Ollie’s ingredient lists contain no animal by-products or meals whatsoever. They also avoid all fillers (ingredients with insignificant nutritional value that create a false sense of substance).
Additionally, Ollie’s iteration of “dry” food is their line of Baked Recipes which are slow-cooked to preserve nutritional value. This is rare to see in the industry, and one of our favorite Ollie features, as many commercial dog food brands scorch their food in the cooking process and in doing so remove any remaining value from ingredients that are often low in nutrients to begin with.
Category Winner: Ollie
Variety of Flavors & Formats
Our four-legged BFFs are creatures of habit, to be sure, but that doesn’t mean they want to eat the same exact meals day-in and day-out. That’s the purpose behind this category… we wanted to see whether Ollie and Blue Buffalo provide opportunities to switch up your pup’s menu.
Ollie’s food is broken down into two categories: Fresh (5 flavors) and Baked (2 flavors). Examples include Fresh Turkey Dish with Blueberries and Baked Beef Dish with Sweet Potatoes. They also carry a line of Supplements (Hip & Joint Chews, Probiotic Chews, etc) which can be tacked on to any order. In addition, the Ollie Pup Survey will always recommend more than one recipe, so right from the start customers are gifted the luxury of variety.
Blue Buffalo, on the other hand, has 8 different product lines that can be categorized as either “dry” or “wet” food. Each “line” contains a range of different protein sources, from Chicken, Lamb, Beef, and general “Fish,” to the more specific Salmon, Bison, Duck and (zooming out again) “Red Meat.” The volume sounds impressive, but when we filled out the Blue Buffalo Dog Food Recommender for Theo, we were recommended just one recipe.
Although Blue Buffalo appears to box customers in a bit more, we applauded them for their wide range of flavor offerings. They nabbed this category.
Category Winner: Blue Buffalo
Price
The elephant in the room is, of course, subject to many factors—how large a dog is, their breed, their diet, etc. We used a team member’s cavapoo (named Theo) to standardize our findings.
First, we filled out Ollie’s Pup Quiz. They recommended a plan for Theo that ranged from $3.30 to $4.71 per day. Less than a coffee in this economy.
We then used the Dog Food Recommender on Blue Buffalo’s website and it steered us toward the Life Protection Formula™ Healthy Weight Chicken and Brown Rice Recipe, which comes out to roughly $1 per day.
To get a better sense of all Blue Buffalo offerings, we also crunched the numbers for one of Blue Buffalo’s wet foods (the True Solutions Healthy Weight Weight Control Formula in particular) and that came out to $5.43 (!) per day.
Many customers like to mix Fresh and Baked (Ollie) or dry and wet (Blue Buffalo) food in their dogs’ bowls, so if we average the price of different formats for both brands, they meet at roughly the same price range.
Category Winner: Tied
Customer Experience
Finding/choosing/purchasing dog food shouldn’t be complicated. This category is all about convenience: how do Ollie and Blue Buffalo help make their customers’ lives as simple as possible?
As we explained earlier, Ollie is a subscription service that will deliver the exact recipes and portions that you need for your dog(s), right to your doorstep. Every order ships for free (and in 2 days). Their Pup Quiz directly leads customers to recommended recipes and helps with portioning, so that customers know exactly what (and how much) to order.
Your first Ollie delivery, The Starter Box, is discounted for every customer and comes with emailed feeding instructions. Overall, we felt like Ollie held our hand through the entire process and threw in more than a few benefits to welcome us to their so-called “pack.”
Blue Buffalo, on the other hand, is sold both in-store and online, but the closest you can get to a subscription is to register with a pet store for a “Repeat Delivery.”
We experienced a love/hate relationship choosing between Blue Buffalo’s offerings. Their food is categorized as either wet or dry, and falls under one of 8 different product lines, with their additional groupings by “Need,” “Life Stage,” and “Breed Size.”
Our team agreed that shopping their website is overwhelming to say the least, and confusing at best. It was difficult to differentiate and choose between slightly varied options with confidence.
Category Winner: Ollie
We’re On the Ollie Bandwagon
In the end, what we at Kitchen Critic look for in dog food is exactly what Ollie delivers: fresh, whole, ingredients that we can see and they (the puppers) can taste. Despite a longer list of protein sources, Blue Buffalo’s standards for the quality of these ingredients leaves much to be desired. In short, we’d take Ollie’s chicken and pork over Blue Buffalo’s “Alligator Meal” any day.
We also loved that Ollie’s website is formatted with pet owners in mind: it’s sleek, straightforward, and open-minded in its recommendations. And because your first order comes at such a high discount AND includes a money-back guarantee, new customers can try Ollie without breaking the bank (or getting a headache in the process).
And most important of all, we can all guarantee that your pups will love it.
