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- In the last couple of years, several startups have entered the dog food meal delivery space to offer healthier alternatives for our four-legged friends.
- PetPlate and Ollie, two of the biggest players in this industry, offer a variety of recipes delivered frozen to your door.
- Both are excellent solutions with Ollie at a lower price point and PetPlate providing more user-friendly packaging.
- A couple other worthwhile fresh dog food options to consider are The Farmer's Dog, which we reviewed here, and NomNomNow, which also caters to cats.
Getting dog food delivered to your door is not a new thing. I've ordered dry food from Amazon for years. But, today's dog food meal delivery services are less like buying kibble online and more like the popular meal delivery services for humans — like Plated — only you don't have to do any cooking to provide your pup with a healthy, nutrient-rich meal.
PetPlate and Ollie recently sent my 14-year-old Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever, Ned, a month's supply of their healthy meals for free.
PetPlate was founded by Renaldo Webb and his dog Winston. Renaldo was looking for healthy solutions for his furry companion and was unhappy with what he was finding in the pet food aisle. With a background as a consultant, he moved into a commercial kitchen space and consulted with veterinarian Dr. Renee Streeter to formulate recipes made with high-quality ingredients and the right vitamins and minerals. Renaldo appeared on Shark Tank in late 2016 but didn't secure funding. But, PetPlate has prospered regardless.
Ollie also got its start around the same time in October 2016. Cofounders Gabby Slome, Randy Jimenez, and Alex Douzet assembled a team of tech specialists, trained nutritionists, and manufacturers to challenge the small conglomerate of companies controlling the dog food industry.
Before we get into the meat and potatoes of the review, it's important to mention that you should introduce your pup to new foods slowly. And, if they have health problems, consult with your vet before starting a new meal plan. With Ned, we gave him a quarter meal of the new food and three-quarters of his old stuff. After monitoring him for a few meals, we progressively gave him more of the new food and weened him off of the kibble.
Below, we will compare the prices, recipe options, delivery options, packaging, and quality of PetPlate and Ollie.
Keep scrolling to see which dog food meal delivery service wins each category and read our final verdict on which one you should buy.
Subscribe to PetPlate or subscribe to Ollie here.
SEE ALSO: The best dog food you can buy
Price
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Winner: Ollie is currently less expensive than PetPlate for my 55-pound dog, but the prices vary based on your pet.
For a fair comparison of the prices of PetPlate and Ollie, I looked at the costs of 28 meals (about two weeks of full meals) of the lamb recipe for Ned. The amount of food a dog eats depends on how much they weigh. So, a bigger dog will need more food, and thus, the cost to feed them will be higher.
The prices I quote here are based on Ned's weight of 55 pounds. PetPlate costs $134.28, or approximately $9.59 per day. Ollie is $112.60, or around $8.04. Additionally, Ollie and PetPlare both offer a 50% discount on your first order.
Recipe options
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Winner: Both companies offer recipes with chicken, turkey, beef, and lamb as the main ingredient, but Ollie's recipes appear to offer more variety.
PetPlate offers chicken, turkey, beef, and lamb recipes. The secondary ingredients for each include sweet potatoes, apples, broccoli, and a host of vitamins and nutrients. Ned tried all four of these recipes and seemed to show the same amount of pizzazz for each.
Ollie offers the same protein options as PetPlate but gives them fancier names: Healthy Turkey Feast, Hearty Beef Eats, Chicken Goodness, and Tasty Lamb Fare. More importantly, the secondary ingredients appear to be more varied. For example, the turkey recipe also features pumpkin, carrot, lentils, kale, blueberries, and more. While, the lamb has butternut squash, rutabaga, chickpeas, cranberries, and more. All of the options are packed full of vitamins and nutrients. Ned only tried the lamb.
Delivery options
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Winner: This is a draw since both companies offer similar delivery options.
Ollie has two main delivery plans. There is the full meal plan with which you receive a box with 14 trays delivered every two weeks. You feed your woofer half the tray in the morning and half at night. The second plan is meant to supplement your dog's regular food with seven trays delivered every four weeks.
With PetPlate's full meal plan, you get 14 20-ounce containers every two weeks. You feed your pup half the container twice a day. With the topper plan, you get 14 containers delivered every 4 weeks.
Both services allow you to cancel, skip, pause, and make changes at any time.
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