By formula · 2026
Best Grain-Free Dog Food in Australia
The best grain-free dog food in Australia is Ivory Coat: scoring 71/100 overall, it's the most accessible dedicated grain-free brand on our list, with an Australian-made range across dry and wet. ZIWI Peak (81/100, naturally grain-free air-dried), Prime100 (78/100), SavourLife (75/100) and Black Hawk (76/100) grain-free complete the picks.
Reviewed by the Dog Food Reviews editorial team
Independent scoringUpdated August 2026Not veterinary advice
Licensed stock photography
Our pick, overall
71/100
Ivory Coat, the dedicated grain-free brand on this list
Highest score here
81/100
ZIWI Peak, grain-free by formulation
Grain-free bags priced
7
Across 5 brands, entered and checked by hand
Cheapest, per day
$2.30
SavourLife Grain Free Adult Lamb 15kg, 15 kg adult dog
How we read this category
Grain-free is a formulation, not a grade
Removing grain does not raise a food's score on its own. Every brand below is scored on the same published 100-point method, so a grain-free panel still has to earn its ingredient, transparency and value marks like anything else. That is why the top score on this page and our pick on this page are two different brands.
The answer
Our grain-free picks at a glance
Three boxed picks, each labelled with the lens it won on. Every score, price and cost-per-day figure below is read from our own index, and the price lines count grain-free bags only.
Our pick
Premium tier
Ivory Coat
Good
71/100
The most accessible dedicated grain-free brand on this list: the core dry and wet ranges are grain-free by design, Australian made and widely stocked. It sits mid-pack on our index rather than at the top, so this is a pick about consistency and availability, not about the highest score.
Grain-free from $10.38/kg · est. $2.40/day (15 kg dog)
Highest score here
Super-premium tier
ZIWI Peak
Strong
81/100
Naturally grain-free by formulation rather than by substitution, and the highest overall score on this list on the strength of a 88/100 ingredient panel. The trade-off is the price per kg, which is the steepest of any grain-free bag we have priced here.
Grain-free from $75/kg · est. $7.50/day (15 kg dog)
Best value here
Premium tier
SavourLife
Good
75/100
The strongest value score on this list: an Australian-made grain-free dry range at the lowest price per kg of any grain-free bag we have priced, with half of profits going to rescue. More panel for the money than the rest of this shortlist.
Grain-free from $9.93/kg · est. $2.30/day (15 kg dog)
Why you should trust us
Dog Food Reviews is published by PetReviews, an independent Australian review platform. Our editorial team scores every brand with the same published 100-point methodology: no pay-to-play, no sponsored rankings, and no brand currently pays us anything, through commissions or otherwise. Prices are editorial estimates we enter and check by hand. How we review · Editorial policy
- 20
- Brands scored
- 39
- Products priced
- 5
- Brands we score under 60
- 0
- Paid placements, ever
The range we actually publish
Every brand sits on the same 0 to 100 scale, and the middle mark is the median of the index rather than an average.
| Index | Lowest | Median | Highest |
|---|---|---|---|
| Every food brand in the index | 44 | 69.5 | 87 |
Our published 100-point methodology
Highest in the index: Lyka at 87/100 (strong).
Lowest in the index: Black & Gold at 44/100 (compare carefully).
Ranked
The full grain-free shortlist
Ingredient score is the pillar that decides a grain-free panel: it reads named-meat density and what the grain was replaced with. The five picks are listed under the chart in our editorial order.
Ingredient score
What is actually in the panel
Ingredient score reads panel quality and named-meat density. It is not a safety measure and it is not the overall score: every brand here is a complete-and-balanced food.
| Brand | Ingredient score | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| ZIWI Peak | 88/100 | Naturally grain-free air-dried; very high named-meat |
| Prime100 | 83/100 | Grain-free single-protein limited-ingredient options |
| Black Hawk | 76/100 | Dedicated grain-free adult dry range available widely |
| SavourLife | 74/100 | Grain-free dry range with mid-premium panels |
| Ivory Coat | 73/100 | Grain-free range across dry and wet; Australian made |
Dog Food Reviews 100-point method
The price ladder
Every grain-free bag we have priced
Grain-free is a formulation, not a price bracket. The same lens across these five brands runs from a 15 kg dry bag to a 1 kg air-dried one, and the spread between them is wider than most shoppers expect.
| Bag | Format | First ingredient | Protein | Per kg |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SavourLife Grain Free Adult Lamb 15kgSavourLife · 15 kg · est. $2.30/day | DryAdult | Lamb | 28% | $9.93/kg |
| Ivory Coat Grain Free Adult Lamb 13kgIvory Coat · 13 kg · est. $2.40/day | DryAdult | Lamb | 27% | $10.38/kg |
| Black Hawk Grain Free Adult Chicken 15kgBlack Hawk · 15 kg · est. $2.50/day | DryAdult | Chicken | 30% | $10.60/kg |
| Prime100 SLR Single Protein Roll Kangaroo 2kgPrime100 · 2 kg · est. $4.40/day | FreshAll life stages | Kangaroo | 11% | $11/kg |
| Prime100 SK-D Single Protein Dry Kangaroo 8kgPrime100 · 8 kg · est. $3.20/day | DryAdult | Kangaroo | 25% | $14.88/kg |
| ZIWI Peak Air-Dried Beef 1kgZIWI Peak · 1 kg · est. $7.50/day | Air-driedAll life stages | Beef | 36% | $75/kg |
| ZIWI Peak Air-Dried Lamb 1kgZIWI Peak · 1 kg · est. $7.90/day | Air-driedAll life stages | Lamb | 38% | $79/kg |
Cheapest per kg
$9.93/kg
SavourLife
Dearest per kg
$79/kg
ZIWI Peak
Dry bags of the 7
4
The rest are air-dried or fresh
“A grain-free label tells you what came out of the bag. It does not tell you what went in instead.”
SavourLife
Grain-free from $9.93/kg · value score 78/100
The trade-off, plotted
What a grain-free ingredient panel costs
Each dot is the cheapest grain-free bag we have priced from that brand. Moving right costs more per kilogram, moving up buys a stronger ingredient panel, and the dashed clay rule is the median of the dots.
Price against panel
The dearest bag here is also the strongest panel
Both figures are already published elsewhere on this page: the price comes from the grain-free ladder above, the ingredient score from our 100-point method. The price axis is logarithmic, so bags priced close together stay readable beside one that is priced nowhere near them.
Ingredient score out of 100
Cheapest grain-free bag, per kg (log scale)
| Item | Cheapest grain-free bag, per kg | Ingredient score out of 100 | Detail |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ivory Coat | $10.38 | 73 | Ivory Coat Grain Free Adult Lamb 13kg · Dry · 13 kg |
| ZIWI Peak | $75.00 | 88 | ZIWI Peak Air-Dried Beef 1kg · Air-dried · 1 kg |
| Prime100 | $11.00 | 83 | Prime100 SLR Single Protein Roll Kangaroo 2kg · Fresh · 2 kg |
| SavourLife | $9.93 | 74 | SavourLife Grain Free Adult Lamb 15kg · Dry · 15 kg |
| Black Hawk | $10.60 | 76 | Black Hawk Grain Free Adult Chicken 15kg · Dry · 15 kg |
Editorial price estimates · Dog Food Reviews scoring
The gap, in one figure
7.6x
the price per kg from the leftmost dot to the rightmost one. The ingredient panels behind those two brands are 14 points apart.
- Left, SavourLife
- $9.93/kg · 74/100
- Right, ZIWI Peak
- $75/kg · 88/100
Side by side
Grain-free picks compared
The same five brands, with every published figure in one place. Scroll the table sideways on a narrow screen.
Edition
- Brand
- Ivory Coat
- Overall
- 71 out of 100
- Ingredients
- 73 out of 100
- Value
- 71 out of 100
- Grain-free format
- Grain-free range across dry and wet; Australian made
- From (per kg)
- $10.38/kg
- Brand
- ZIWI Peak
- Overall
- 81 out of 100
- Ingredients
- 88 out of 100
- Value
- 64 out of 100
- Grain-free format
- Naturally grain-free air-dried; very high named-meat
- From (per kg)
- $75/kg
- Brand
- Prime100
- Overall
- 78 out of 100
- Ingredients
- 83 out of 100
- Value
- 72 out of 100
- Grain-free format
- Grain-free single-protein limited-ingredient options
- From (per kg)
- $11/kg
- Brand
- SavourLife
- Overall
- 75 out of 100
- Ingredients
- 74 out of 100
- Value
- 78 out of 100
- Grain-free format
- Grain-free dry range with mid-premium panels
- From (per kg)
- $8.06/kg
- Brand
- Black Hawk
- Overall
- 76 out of 100
- Ingredients
- 76 out of 100
- Value
- 74 out of 100
- Grain-free format
- Dedicated grain-free adult dry range available widely
- From (per kg)
- $8.45/kg
Cost per day, grain-free only
What a day of grain-free food actually costs
A longer bar means more per day. Each figure is the cheapest per-day cost we have priced from that brand's grain-free bags, fed to a ~15 kg adult dog at the brand feeding guide.
| Brand | Cost per day | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| SavourLife | $2.30 | SavourLife Grain Free Adult Lamb 15kg · $9.93/kg |
| Ivory Coat | $2.40 | Ivory Coat Grain Free Adult Lamb 13kg · $10.38/kg |
| Black Hawk | $2.50 | Black Hawk Grain Free Adult Chicken 15kg · $10.60/kg |
| Prime100 | $3.20 | Prime100 SK-D Single Protein Dry Kangaroo 8kg · $14.88/kg |
| ZIWI Peak | $7.50 | ZIWI Peak Air-Dried Beef 1kg · $75/kg |
Editorial estimates, entered by hand
What the label actually means
Grain-free is not carb-free. Read the whole panel.
Peas, lentils and sweet potato are the most common replacements for wheat, corn and rice in grain-free formulas. They are carbohydrate sources, not protein. A grain-free food with peas as the second ingredient and a vague 'meat meal' further down the panel is not necessarily better than a grain-inclusive food with a named protein first. Don't buy the front of the bag; read the ingredient panel.
Typically removed
- WheatGrain
- CornGrain
- RiceGrain
Typically added
- PeasCarb source
- LentilsCarb source
- Sweet potatoCarb source
- ChickpeasCarb source
- TapiocaCarb source
Every item in the right-hand column is a carbohydrate source. A grain-free label does not mean low-carb, and it does not mean high-meat.
The checklist
What to look for in grain-free dog food
Six checks that matter more than the words on the front of the bag.
Named meat first
The first ingredient should be a named animal protein (e.g. chicken, lamb, kangaroo), not a grain substitute like peas or lentils.
Check the carb sources
Grain-free doesn't mean low-carb. Note what replaces the grain: sweet potato, tapioca and peas are common alternatives.
Understand the DCM context
US research found a potential link between high-legume grain-free diets and heart disease in dogs. The science is evolving; discuss with your vet if concerned.
Has your dog's grain sensitivity been confirmed?
Grain intolerance is less common than marketing suggests. True elimination requires vet input. Don't assume grain is the problem without evidence.
Complete and balanced statement
Regardless of grain content, confirm the food is complete and balanced for your dog's life stage.
Vet input for health-driven decisions
If the move to grain-free is driven by a health issue, confirm the cause and the solution with your vet before switching.
Frequently asked questions
5 questions
Ivory Coat is our top pick for a dedicated grain-free brand: its core range is grain-free by design, Australian made, and widely stocked at a reasonable per-kg price (71/100 overall). ZIWI Peak (81/100) is the highest-scored brand on this shortlist and is naturally grain-free, but comes at a significant price premium. SavourLife's grain-free range is the best value option on the list at 78/100 value score.
Most dogs digest grain well and don't require grain-free food. Grain-free diets are most relevant for dogs with a confirmed grain sensitivity or intolerance, but these are less common than marketing would suggest. If you're considering grain-free for health reasons, confirm the cause of the issue with your vet before switching; other dietary factors are often the culprit.
Not automatically. In the United States, the FDA investigated a potential link between grain-free diets high in peas, lentils and legumes and dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) in dogs. The science is not settled, but the association is worth knowing. In Australia the picture is similar: grain-free is not inherently superior, and a high-quality grain-inclusive food with a named-meat-first panel often outperforms a lower-quality grain-free alternative. Discuss with your vet if you have concerns.
Common replacements include sweet potato, peas, lentils, chickpeas and tapioca. These carbohydrate sources are grain-free but not carbohydrate-free: a grain-free label doesn't mean low-carb or high-meat. Check the ingredient panel and ingredient percentages, not just the grain-free claim on the front of the bag.
No. Dog Food Reviews is an independent comparison resource. Grain-free decisions with a health basis, especially suspected grain intolerance, should be made with your vet's input, not a comparison page alone.