Black & Gold

Our index carries four supermarket house labels: Coles' Woofin' Good! at 50/100, Aldi's Julius at 48/100, Woolworths' Baxter's at 46/100, and Black & Gold last at 44/100. It is also structurally different: the brand belongs to Metcash, the wholesaler behind IGA and Australia's independent grocers, and because every IGA is independently owned, range and shelf price shift from store to store in a way a Coles or Woolworths aisle does not.

The gap below the other three comes from the pillars closest to the food. Black & Gold scores 40/100 on ingredient quality and 40/100 on transparency, the lowest marks on both in our index. Its one indexed product, Adult Dry Beef & Vegetables 8kg, lists cereals and meat meal at the top of the panel rather than a named meat, and declares 18% protein and 9% fat: the lowest protein of any dry bag we track, level with Baxter's and Julius, and the lowest fat, level with Julius. We score from published information, and this brand publishes very little.

The 8kg Beef & Vegetables bag sits at $18.00 AUD at IGA in our records, an editorial estimate, which works out at $2.25 per kilogram and roughly $1.00 a day for a typical 15kg adult dog. Both are the lowest we list, and every price in this section is an editorial estimate. The margin over the other house bags is thin, though: Julius at Aldi is $2.50 per kilogram and about $1.10 a day, with Baxter's at $2.61 and Woofin' Good! at $2.72, each near $1.20 a day.

Per day, the saving over those bags is 10 to 20 cents, and it buys the weakest product rating of the four: we rate this bag 48/100, against 54/100 for Julius, 50/100 for Baxter's and 56/100 for Woofin' Good!. The jump to a national brand costs more and returns more. SavourLife's Original Adult Chicken 18kg works out near $2.00 a day at $8.06 per kilogram, roughly an extra dollar a day for a brand scoring 75/100 overall against 44/100 here.

The honest case for Black & Gold is convenience on a hard budget. If your nearest shop is an IGA or an independent grocer and the feeding budget is genuinely fixed, an Australian-made bag at roughly $1.00 a day on a shelf down the road has practical value, which is why availability, at 64/100, is its best pillar. Confirm the price in store, though: IGA stores set their own shelves, so $18.00 AUD is a guide, not a promise.

Skip it if anything above the minimum spend is workable. Despite the cheapest sticker we list, the value score is only 53/100, because value weighs what the money buys, and 40/100 ingredients drags it down; owner sentiment, at 48/100, points the same way. If a named meat first ingredient or published sourcing matters, the listed alternatives, Black Hawk at 76/100, SavourLife at 75/100 and Ivory Coat at 71/100, all clear that bar for an extra $1.00 to $1.40 a day. For a dog with specific dietary needs, ask your vet: none of this is veterinary advice.