UK fresh dog food head to head
Butternut Box vs Pure Pet Food on price
A freezer full of frozen pouches against a cupboard shelf of dried food you rehydrate at bowl time. These two sit at opposite ends of the fresh category on storage, on preparation and on price, and the gap between them is wider than most shortlists assume. Here is what each costs once its introductory period ends, and what a year on either actually comes to.
- Freezer space against cupboard space, priced
- Ongoing figures, with the introductory period stripped out
- Anything we track that undercuts them both is listed
Ongoing prices for a neutered 14kg adult dog on typical walks. Both verified 26 Jul 2026 from the brands' own quote processes.
Price by dog size
Neither brand sells plan tiers you can read off a page, so both figures come from quotes we ran ourselves. Each portions to the dog rather than to a bag size, which is why the numbers climb smoothly with weight instead of stepping. All are ongoing rates for a neutered adult on typical walks.
| Dog | Butternut BoxGently cooked | Pure Pet FoodDehydrated |
|---|---|---|
| Chihuahua3kg | £1.80 | £1.17 (cheaper for this dog) |
| Dachshund9kg | £2.52 | £1.81 (cheaper for this dog) |
| Cocker Spaniel14kg | £3.26 | £2.35 (cheaper for this dog) |
| Border Collie19kg | £3.77 | £2.57 (cheaper for this dog) |
| Labrador30kg | £4.88 | £3.04 (cheaper for this dog) |
| Rottweiler40kg | £5.40 | £3.47 (cheaper for this dog) |
Cheaper by weight
- 2–60kgPure Pet Food
Dehydrated food travels dry and gets its water added at your tap, so the shipping weight is a fraction of a frozen plan's for the same fed portion. That is the single biggest reason the two columns separate the way they do, and the reason the gap widens as dogs get bigger.
What moving between them costs
A move in either direction starts a fresh introductory offer, which flatters the first year against every year that follows. These figures separate the two so the offer is visible rather than baked in. Worked out for a mid-size adult dog.
- £27.70more a month on Butternut Box, once both are at their ongoing price
- £332.15more a year at the ongoing prices, for the same dog
- 50days before Butternut Box has cost more in total than Pure Pet Food, starting its offer today
- £1,144.26a first year on Butternut Box with its offer, against £857.75 staying on Pure Pet Food
Priced as someone already past their current brand's offer, comparing that brand's ongoing rate against a full first year on the other including its introduction. Both sides come from the sampled models behind the calculator.
Cheaper than both, for the same dog
A shortlist of two says nothing about what sits outside it. This is everything else we track at the same dog's price, filtered to whatever beats both brands above. Order is price and nothing else, and the food type is marked because some of it is a different product entirely.
- tails.comPersonalised kibble£1.25/day
- Bella & DukeRaw£2.09/day
Freezer or cupboard
Butternut Box arrives frozen and stays frozen until the night before. A mid-size dog on a four-weekly delivery needs a meaningful amount of freezer given over to it, and households who have tried fresh food and gone back often name that as the reason rather than the cost.
Pure Pet Food ships dried and lives on a shelf. You measure it out and stir in warm water at feeding time, which takes a minute or two and means the whole delivery fits in a cupboard. If freezer capacity is the constraint in your kitchen, that difference decides this comparison before price gets a say.
Two things that move the Pure figure
Pure's price per day depends on how often it delivers. The longer cycle worked out around a tenth cheaper per day when we sampled it, and the cycle lengths themselves change with dog size, running four or eight weeks for small dogs and three or six for the largest. We record the shorter, default-selected option, because that is the quote you are given unless you go looking.
Its signup also asks more than most, working through health conditions and body shape across roughly fifteen steps before showing a number. The upside is that the portion is calculated rather than estimated. The figures on this page use a healthy adult with no conditions declared, so a dog with a therapeutic requirement may be quoted differently.
Cheaper of the two for a typical 14kg adult dog
Pure Pet Food£2.35/day · £71.53/month ongoing
Take either one on its own
What Butternut Box costs
Prices by dog size, what the introductory offer does, and every brand we track that undercuts it.
What Pure Pet Food costs
Prices by dog size, what the introductory offer does, and every brand we track that undercuts it.
Gently cooked only
Butternut Box and Different Dog head to head, at the price that applies after the offer.
Fresh food only
Raw, gently cooked and dehydrated plans compared without kibble in the ranking.
Butternut Box vs Pure Pet Food: your questions
Is dehydrated food really fresh food?
It is sold alongside fresh brands and works the same way, portioned to your individual dog and delivered on subscription, which is why we compare them together. The processing is different: whole ingredients are air dried rather than cooked into pouches. What you are paying for on a frozen plan, and not on a dried one, is chilling and shipping the water.
Does adding water myself make it worse value than it looks?
No, because the prices on this page are per day of feeding, not per kilo of product. Both figures already reflect what one dog eats in one day, prepared as the brand intends. Comparing the two by weight would be misleading in the other direction, since a dried portion weighs a fraction of the frozen one it replaces.
Which is less effort day to day?
Frozen pouches need remembering the night before but nothing at the bowl. Dried needs no planning ahead but a minute of measuring and stirring at each meal. Neither is difficult; they simply fail differently, one when you forget to defrost and the other when you are in a hurry.
Can I try one before committing?
Both open with a discounted introductory period rather than a fixed contract, and neither required a minimum term at the point we sampled them. The thing worth watching is that the introductory price is not the plan price, and the switching figures on this page are there to show how far apart the two sit.