I’ve been wanting to review VivaRaw for the blog for a while now and with their new special coming out today, it was the nudge I needed.
In honor of transparency, I want to let you know that I am an affiliate partner with VivaRaw. What this means is that I have a special code (RAWFELINE) that I can offer blog readers and social media followers that gives you 20% off your first order. If my code is used, I receive a credit to my VivaRaw account towards my own purchase. I chose to be an affiliate with VivaRaw because I genuinely love the food and feed it in Hazel’s rotation regularly. Read on to find out why.
It’s important to me to have a pre-made commercial raw available for Hazel. It’s nice to be able to just scoop and serve to protect against raw feeding burnout for me and to provide variety for her. Hazel is a red meat girl, but she really likes VivaRaw’s rabbit. And she couldn’t be happier with the latest special, goat. I think it is her favorite special so far, with the elk a close second. More on the seasonal specials coming up.
Feeding a pre-made commercial raw food is a great way to start your raw feeding journey, too. It’s one of the easiest ways to feed raw. You just thaw, scoop, and serve. It’s as easy as opening a can of food.
Who is VivaRaw?
VivaRaw is a small business run by pet parents, Zach and Jenn. They started VivaRaw in 2020. They wanted to feed high quality raw for their own dog, but didn’t like their options. So, they started their own pet food business.
If you follow VivaRaw on Instagram, you will see how much Zach and Jenn interact with their customers. They often post videos of behind the scene footage of the farms where they source the meat as well as the making and packaging of the food in their facilities.
What foods does VivaRaw offer?
VivaRaw has three lines of food: dog, cat, and pure. The base proteins are the same for all three lines: chicken, turkey, beef, duck, and rabbit.
Complete cat food
Let’s start with the cat line. The cat line is formulated to meet AAFCO’s recommendations for All Life Stages. This makes it an appropriate food for both kittens and adult cats. They provide a detailed nutritional analysis for all of their foods. Click here for the one for the complete chicken cat food. They use meat, bone, organs, and other whole foods in their recipes.
Here are the ingredients for the chicken:
Chicken with Ground Bone, Chicken Heart, Chicken Gizzard, Chicken Liver, Organic Psyllium Husk, Chilean Mussels, Fish Oil, Organic Egg Yolk, Taurine, Cod Liver Oil, Organic Icelandic Kelp, Nutritional Yeast, Vitamin E (Tocopherols), Oyster Meat, Manganese Proteinate
You can see that along with the meat, bone, and liver, they also include some muscular organs, namely heart and gizzards. There is psyllium husk for fiber. Fish oil for omega-3s. Mussels, kelp, oysters, nutritional yeast, and egg yolk are some of the whole food sources included in each recipe to provide the necessary nutrients. The use of whole foods is a major benefit of VivaRaw. I wrote about why using whole foods is important in this previous blog.
The recipes have a bone content in the range of 8-10%, so if you have a senior or a kitty with CKD, this will not be the best choice. But for kittens and adults, it’s a great bone based option to include in your cat’s rotation.
The meat is free from antibiotics and hormones. The food is made in small batches in a human grade facility.
The cat line is ground, with the rabbit being the most smooth in texture. They come in one pound packages with two packages connected. They are then sold as a two pound pack. You can easily separate each pound of food along the perforation. Bonus!–they stack nicely in the freezer with their consistent rectangle shape.
Since it is complete food, you only need to thaw overnight in the fridge and then scoop and serve. You do not need to add anything. So it’s a super easy way to feed high quality raw food. The one pound package thaws easily overnight in a standard 40 degree refrigerator. You can also thaw and portion into smaller amounts and refreeze.
Pure Food Line
Now let’s look at the Pure line of foods. Again, it has the same base proteins of chicken, turkey, beef, duck and rabbit. But these foods are NOT complete. These are prey model raw bases that you can use to make your cat’s (or dog’s ) food. The ratios are 80-10-10, which means 80% meat (including muscular organs), 10% bone, and 10% organs.
Here are the ingredients of the Pure beef food:
Beef, Beef Heart, Beef Bone, Beef Kidney, Beef Liver
You can see the difference in the ingredient lists between the Cat and Pure lines of food. You can add whole foods or supplements to the Pure line to customize it for your pet. Alnutrin for Meat + Bone can be used with the Pure line as well.
You can also reduce the bone content if needed for your cat. Basically, the Pure line is a ratio base that allows you to customize your cat’s food.
Seasonal Specials
The base proteins are available on their website all the time. Additionally, they offer specials throughout the year. Recent specials have included emu/venison, elk, bison, and the current one, goat. The specials are a nice way to try a less common protein and for added variety. They always sell out of their specials, so if you want to try the current one, I would not delay in ordering. Hazel highly recommends the goat and gives it an enthusiastic 4 paws up.
How to Buy
Speaking of ordering, the minimum order is 10 lbs. They ship in the US to the 48 contiguous states. If your order is more than $250, then the shipping is free. For orders under $250, there is a flat rate of either $15-20, depending on your location. They ship orders out Monday through Wednesday, and orders should arrive in 1-3 days. My orders have always arrived still frozen, even in the summer months.
VivaRaw offers a subscription option or you can place individual orders. It just depends what works best for you. If you also have a dog, their Complete Dog Foods are great. They have the same base proteins, but the Dog line includes organic produce and offers two textures, ground and chunked, to choose from.
The cost of feeding VivaRaw is very comparable to feeding canned foods. The chicken is the least expensive and the rabbit is the most. But even the rabbit costs me less than high end canned. When you figure out the cost per ounce to feed your cat and compare to how much canned food you would feed and the cost of the can, you can see that VivaRaw is a better deal for much higher quality food.
Important to note, VivaRaw offers a “clean bowl guarantee.” This means that if your cat—after an appropriate introduction and transition process (this is my reminder, not theirs)—doesn’t like the food, they will refund your order. I really like that they offer this guarantee, so it feels less risky to try the food since you can’t get individual amounts to start with.
VivaRaw’s Commitment & Philosophy
All of the meat used in their foods come from animals that are humanely raised and free from antibiotics and hormones. They are committed to sourcing animals from ethical farms.
“At Viva, we care about the compassionate treatment of all animals. That’s why 100% of our chicken recipes are certified by a third-party welfare certification recognized by Shop With Your Heart® – a program of the ASPCA®. Additionally, we are working to certify 100% of our beef & turkey recipes as well by the end of 2023.
Taking our commitment to animals one step further, we are proud to announce we are aligning ourselves with the Better Chicken Commitment (Version 1) by 2028, a standard endorsed by animal welfare organizations across the country. Our chicken products have already exceeded the environment & housing standards of this commitment since our inception. As we make advancements toward this standard, we will share our progress yearly.” ~from the VivaRaw website
I really appreciate Zach and Jenn’s transparency when it comes to sourcing and producing their foods. It is so important for cat parents to be able to trust the food we feed our cats. Zach and Jenn seem to understand the weight of that trust by what they share on social media, in emails, and on their website, and how they choose to make their food.
If you are looking for a high quality frozen pre-made raw food for your kitten or cat, VivaRaw is a great choice. From the sourcing, ingredients used, ease of feeding, and “clean bowl guarantee,” it really can’t be beat!
