Is Julius Worth It?
A straight answer on whether Julius 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
Julius product photography
- Overall score
- 48/100
- Compare carefully
- Value score
- 57/100
- Poor value
- From (per day)
- $1.10
- ~15kg dog
The short answer
Aldi's everyday house brand: very cheap per kg and convenient, but firmly entry-level. It scores low because the panels are cereal-led rather than named-meat-first, sourcing detail is minimal, and the meat content sits well below the premium tier. A no-frills budget feed where the low price is doing all the work; weigh it on cost-per-day, not the sticker.
Where the points come from
The strongest pillar is availability & convenience at 66/100, worth 10 of the 100 points. The weakest is ingredient quality at 43/100. 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 57/100, 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 Julius Adult Dry Dog Food Beef & Vegetables 18kg, at $1.10 a day for a ~15kg adult dog.
The field
Where 48 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 Julius 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.
Julius
48/100 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 Julius 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 Julius is worth it
- Tight budgets
- Aldi shoppers topping up convenience bags
When to compare carefully
- Ingredient quality and transparency are your top priorities
What it costs
What Julius 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
Julius Adult Dry Dog Food Beef & Vegetables 18kg
- Price per kg
- $2.50/kg
- Est. cost per day
- $1.10
- Pack size
- 18kg
- First ingredient
- Cereals / meat meal
- Protein
- 18%
Best per-serve value
Julius Adult Dry Dog Food Beef & Vegetables 18kg
$2.50/kg
$1.10 a day for a ~15kg adult dog
- Pack size
- 18kg
- First ingredient
- Cereals / meat meal
- Format
- Dry
Licensed editorial photography
The verdict
Is Julius worth it?
Cheap and convenient if you're already at Aldi, but it's a cereal-led house brand with minimal sourcing detail and meat content below the premium tier. On cost-per-day the saving over a national brand like Black Hawk, SavourLife or Ivory Coat is smaller than the sticker suggests: buy on price, with eyes open.
Scored out of 100 across 6 weighted pillars
dogfoodreviews.com.au
The detail
The daily maths on a $45 bag
At Aldi, the one Julius bag in our index, Adult Beef & Vegetables 18kg, is $45.00 AUD, or $2.50 per kg. For a 15kg adult dog that is about $1.10 a day on our editorial estimates. SavourLife Original Adult Chicken comes in the same 18kg pack at $145 and about $2.00 a day. Ivory Coat Grain Free Adult Lamb 13kg is $135 and $2.40.
The everyday gap is about 90 cents a day against SavourLife and $1.30 against Ivory Coat, in the order of $330 to $475 a year for one medium dog. What the money buys shows in the scores: the Julius bag rates 54 out of 100, the SavourLife bag 83 and the Ivory Coat bag 80, with the brands at 48, 75 and 71.
What the low sticker actually buys
Availability is Julius's strongest pillar at 66 out of 100, and it is earned narrowly. The bag sits in a supermarket many households already visit weekly, and the label covers wet food and treats as well as dry, so a whole feeding routine comes off one shelf. Aldi itself rates 80 out of 100 on pricing in our retailer index.
Value, at 57 out of 100, is the next pillar behind availability, and the arithmetic behind it is plain: on our editorial estimates, at $2.50 per kg nothing in our index undercuts Julius except IGA's Black & Gold at $2.25, and at about $1.10 a day only that bag feeds a 15kg dog for less. Among the 18kg supermarket bags, Julius is the cheapest per kg in our index.
When $1.10 a day is still the wrong buy
The saving is paid for on the panel. Julius lists cereals and meat meal ahead of any named meat, at 18 per cent protein and 9 per cent fat, and takes 43 out of 100 for ingredient quality. The SavourLife bag leads with chicken at 26 per cent protein, the Ivory Coat bag with lamb at 27. This is not veterinary advice.
Transparency scores the same 43 out of 100, and Aldi's private-label disclosure rates 49 in our retailer index, so little is published behind that meat meal line. The bigger trade-off is the lock-in: Julius is sold only through Aldi, whose range scores 45 out of 100 because the aisle is essentially two house labels, with no national brand beside it to price against.
How owners pay less, and where the levers stop
Julius has no price levers to pull. One brand, one dry bag in our index, one retailer: $45 at Aldi, with no member pricing, no price matching and no autoship in our data. The bag is mostly in-store only, so there is no free-delivery threshold to game either. At about $1.10 a day, $45 covers roughly 41 days of feeding.
The levers sit on the alternatives instead. SavourLife Original 18kg is $138 at Pet Circle and $131 on its autoship, about $7.28 per kg, and the Ivory Coat 13kg is $129 at Pet Circle or $135 with Petbarn member pricing, against $149 on its shelf. Those are the prices to run the daily maths on before deciding the cheap bag has won. All of those figures are editorial estimates, so check the shelf or the cart before you commit.
The alternatives
Better-value alternatives to Julius
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 Julius 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
Julius scores 48/100 overall and 57/100 on value in our index (poor value on value). Cheap and convenient if you're already at Aldi, but it's a cereal-led house brand with minimal sourcing detail and meat content below the premium tier. On cost-per-day the saving over a national brand like Black Hawk, SavourLife or Ivory Coat is smaller than the sticker suggests: buy on price, with eyes open.
For a ~15kg adult dog, Julius works out from about $1.10 per day on Julius Adult Dry Dog Food Beef & Vegetables 18kg ($2.50/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 Julius 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 the Julius 18kg is $2.50 per kg and about $1.10 a day, against Baxter's 18kg at Woolworths at $2.61 and about $1.20, and Woofin' Good's 18kg at Coles at $2.72 and about $1.20. IGA's Black & Gold is cheaper again at $2.25 per kg, but from an 8kg bag. On brand score Julius sits at 48 out of 100, ahead of Baxter's on 46 and Black & Gold on 44, and behind Woofin' Good on 50.
Both, for different jobs. The 54 is the Adult Beef & Vegetables 18kg judged on its own merits. The 48 is Julius across the six weighted pillars in our methodology: Price & Value 25 points, Ingredient Quality 25, Nutrition & Suitability 20, Transparency 15, Availability 10 and Sentiment 5. Julius takes 57 for value and 66 for availability, but 43 for both ingredients and transparency and 48 for nutrition, which is what pulls the brand mark below the bag.
On price, yes: Aldi scores 80 out of 100 on pricing and 76 on value in our retailer index. On choosing a diet, less so. Its overall 66 is held down by a range score of 45, because the aisle is essentially Julius and Natural Elements with no national brands or prescription diets, a subscription score of 50 with no autoship, and private-label transparency of 49. Treat it as a convenience buy rather than a feeding plan.
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.