Is Baxter's Worth It?
A straight answer on whether Baxter's is worth the money, based on its overall score, value score and real cost per serve, with better-value alternatives if it isn't the right fit.
Reviewed by Adam Lorimer
Contributing reviewer, brand and product sideIndependent scoringUpdated August 2026Not veterinary advice
Our score
Compare carefully
Baxter's product photography
- Overall score
- 46/100
- Compare carefully
- Value score
- 53/100
- Poor value
- From (per day)
- $1.20
- ~15kg dog
The short answer
Woolworths' long-running supermarket house brand and one of the cheapest feeds per kg available. It sits near the bottom of our index for a clear reason: cereal-led panels rather than named meat, minimal sourcing detail behind the label, and meat content among the lowest in the range. The price is the entire pitch: there's little ingredient story to weigh against it.
Where the points come from
The strongest pillar is availability & convenience at 72/100, worth 10 of the 100 points. The weakest is ingredient quality at 42/100. That pattern, rather than the headline number, is what decides whether the price is worth paying for your dog.
What the money buys
Value is scored at 53/100, which we rate poor value, and it carries 25 of the 100 points on its own. The cheapest way to feed it in our index is Baxter's Dry Dog Food Chicken & Vegetables 18kg, at $1.20 a day for a ~15kg adult dog.
The field
Where 46 sits across every brand we score
One tick per brand. The shaded band is the middle half of the index and the heavy rule is the median, so the score reads as a position rather than a promise.
- MinMin
- 44
- Q1Lower quartile
- 58.5
- MedianMedian
- 69.5
- Q3Upper quartile
- 78.8
- MaxMax
- 87
| Brand | Overall score |
|---|---|
| Black & Gold | 44 |
| Baxter's | 46 |
| Julius | 48 |
| Woofin' Good! | 50 |
| ProBalance | 54 |
| Leaps & Bounds | 60 |
| The Nosh Project | 62 |
| Providore | 64 |
| Hill's Science Diet | 66 |
| Royal Canin | 68 |
| Ivory Coat | 71 |
| Meals for Mutts | 74 |
| SavourLife | 75 |
| Black Hawk | 76 |
| Prime100 | 78 |
| ZIWI Peak | 81 |
| Petzyo | 83 |
| Frontier Pets | 84 |
| Scratch | 86 |
| Lyka | 87 |
Dog Food Reviews scoring
The scorecard
How Baxter's scores
Scored against our published methodology. Where a brand earns its points is the whole worth-it question: two brands on the same overall score can be worth very different money.
Baxter's
46/100 overall · Compare carefully
How the 100 points are split
- 25 Price & Value
- 25 Ingredient Quality
- 20 Nutrition & Suitability
- 15 Transparency
- 10 Availability & Convenience
- 5 Customer Sentiment
The checklist
When Baxter's is worth it, and when it is not
Both lists come straight from this brand's entry in our index. Neither is a verdict on the food, only on the fit.
When Baxter's is worth it
- Tight budgets
- Weekly-shop convenience
When to compare carefully
- Ingredient quality and transparency matter to you
- You want meaningful named-meat content
What it costs
What Baxter's costs to feed
Cost per day is the figure that decides this page. It assumes a ~15kg adult dog at the brand's own feeding guide, so it moves with your dog rather than with the sticker price.
Prices checked· Editorial estimates
The product we hold
Baxter's Dry Dog Food Chicken & Vegetables 18kg
- Price per kg
- $2.61/kg
- Est. cost per day
- $1.20
- Pack size
- 18kg
- First ingredient
- Cereals / meat meal
- Protein
- 18%
Best per-serve value
Baxter's Dry Dog Food Chicken & Vegetables 18kg
$2.61/kg
$1.20 a day for a ~15kg adult dog
- Pack size
- 18kg
- First ingredient
- Cereals / meat meal
- Format
- Dry
Licensed editorial photography
The verdict
Is Baxter's worth it?
About as cheap as it gets, and price is the only real argument for it: cereal-led panels, sparse sourcing detail and low meat content put it near the bottom of our index. If the budget allows any step up, a national brand like Black Hawk, SavourLife or Ivory Coat gives your dog a stronger panel for not much more per day.
Scored out of 100 across 6 weighted pillars
dogfoodreviews.com.au
The detail
The daily maths: $1.20 a day against the national brands
Baxter's Chicken & Vegetables 18kg sells for $47 at Woolworths, which is $2.61 per kg and roughly $1.20 a day for a 15kg adult dog on our editorial estimates. The same maths puts SavourLife Original Adult Chicken, also an 18kg bag, at $145 and about $2.00 a day, and Black Hawk Adult Chicken & Rice 20kg at $169 and about $2.10.
The honest gap is therefore about 80 cents a day against SavourLife and 90 cents against Black Hawk, which for one medium dog is roughly $290 to $330 a year. What those dollars buy is the real question, and the scores answer it: the Baxter's bag rates 50/100 in our index, the SavourLife bag 83 and the Black Hawk bag 85.
Where $2.61 per kg genuinely earns its keep
Availability is Baxter's strongest pillar at 72/100, and it is honestly earned. The bag sits in every Woolworths in the country, rides home with the weekly groceries, and comes via standard grocery delivery from about $5 if you order in. No Petbarn or Pet Circle order can fold a bag of dog food into an errand you were already running every week.
The value score of 53/100 also outruns the 46 overall for a reason: at $2.61 per kg, only Aldi's Julius at $2.50 and IGA's Black & Gold at $2.25 cost less anywhere in our index on our editorial estimates, and Baxter's undercuts its direct Coles rival, Woofin' Good! at $2.72. If the brief is the cheapest full bowl at a major supermarket, Baxter's is on the podium.
When Baxter's is not worth even $1.20 a day
The panel is where the low price is paid. The first listed ingredient is cereals and meat meal rather than named chicken, protein is declared at 18% against 26% in both the SavourLife and Black Hawk adult bags, and Baxter's ingredient score of 42/100 sits among the lowest we publish. Whether that matters for your dog is a question for your vet: this is not veterinary advice.
Transparency scores the same 42/100, and the two low numbers are linked: the label says little about what sits behind meat meal, and our Woolworths entry rates the supermarket's private-label disclosure at 51/100. If knowing exactly what you are feeding matters to you, that missing detail, more than the panel itself, is the reason to spend the extra 80 cents.
How owners pay less, and where the levers run out
Baxter's has none of the usual price levers: one bag, one size, one retailer in our index, $47 at Woolworths on our editorial estimates, no member pricing, no price match, no pet autoship. The only saving to engineer is delivery: a $47 bag will not clear the $100 free grocery delivery threshold alone, but added to the weekly shop it ships for nothing extra.
The sharper lever sits with the alternatives. SavourLife Original falls from $145 to $131 on Pet Circle's autoship, about $7.28 per kg, and the Black Hawk 20kg drops to $149 on PETO's subscription. Those subscription prices pull the daily gap under 70 cents on our estimates, and that smaller number, not the shelf sticker, is the fair comparison before settling on the cheap bag.
The alternatives
Better-value alternatives to Baxter's
Scored on the same 100-point model, so the comparison is like for like. Each card prints the two pillars a reader actually swaps a food on.
Black Hawk
Premium · Good
Fine on a discounted big bag if you choose a named-meat-first recipe, but don't assume the whole range is equal: the cheaper lines pad the panel with grain and rice, and a chunk of the price is reach and marketing rather than ingredients. Compare the specific formula on cost per kg against SavourLife and Ivory Coat.
- Value
- 74/100
- Ingredients
- 76/100
Best forEveryday feeding if you pick the right recipe
SavourLife
Premium · Good
Fair value and the rescue donations are real, not greenwash: but the food itself is good rather than exceptional, with mid-premium panels and a narrow range. Buy it because the per-kg value stacks up, not because the cause makes the ingredients better than they are.
- Value
- 78/100
- Ingredients
- 74/100
Best forValue-conscious feeders who want a clean enough panel
Ivory Coat
Premium · Good
A competent grain-free all-rounder, but it's mid-pack on every measure and now sits inside a big multi-brand portfolio where recipes have moved with ownership. Fine if the price is right on the day: just don't expect it to out-spec a more focused independent brand.
- Value
- 71/100
- Ingredients
- 73/100
Best forGrain-free everyday feeding where 'good enough' is fine
Common questions
Is Baxter's worth it? FAQs
Short answers to the questions that decide it, using the same published figures as the sections above.
Answers checked
Scores and estimates from our index
Baxter's scores 46/100 overall and 53/100 on value in our index (poor value on value). About as cheap as it gets, and price is the only real argument for it: cereal-led panels, sparse sourcing detail and low meat content put it near the bottom of our index. If the budget allows any step up, a national brand like Black Hawk, SavourLife or Ivory Coat gives your dog a stronger panel for not much more per day.
For a ~15kg adult dog, Baxter's works out from about $1.20 per day on Baxter's Dry Dog Food Chicken & Vegetables 18kg ($2.61/kg). Cost per serve is the figure that matters most: compare it against alternatives before deciding.
If value is your top priority and you're feeding a large dog on a tight budget, compare Baxter's carefully against Black Hawk and SavourLife. The right pick is the one that fits your dog and budget.
Consider Black Hawk, SavourLife, Ivory Coat. Compare them on price per kg and cost per day: a different brand may give you more for similar money.
On our editorial estimates, a roughly 15kg dog costs about $1.20 a day on Baxter's Chicken & Vegetables versus about $2.00 on SavourLife Original and $2.10 on Black Hawk Adult Chicken & Rice, so the saving is in the order of $290 to $330 a year. Subscription pricing on the alternatives, such as SavourLife at $131 through Pet Circle autoship, narrows that gap, so run the maths at the price you would actually pay.
Because price is only part of the mark. Our methodology weights Price & Value at 25 of 100 points, with Ingredient Quality (25), Nutrition & Suitability (20), Transparency (15), Availability & Convenience (10) and Customer Sentiment (5) making up the rest. Baxter's takes 53/100 on value and a genuinely strong 72/100 on availability, but 42/100 for both ingredients and transparency drags the overall down. A low sticker lifts one pillar; it cannot carry the other five.
No. Baxter's is a Woolworths house brand sold exclusively through Woolworths, so the $47 for the 18kg bag is effectively fixed: there is no member pricing, price match or pet autoship to shop it down. Compare that with Black Hawk's 20kg bag, which we track across five retailers at anywhere from $149 on PETO's subscription to $189 at Petbarn before member pricing. All prices here are editorial estimates, and exclusivity is part of what you trade for the low sticker.
No. Dog Food Reviews is an independent value and comparison resource, not veterinary advice. Prices are illustrative and manually entered for v1, always confirm the live price with the retailer before buying.