UK gently cooked dog food comparison
What does gently cooked dog food cost?
Gently cooked is the priciest of the fresh formats we track, and the two brands sit close enough together that the cheaper one depends on your dog's size rather than being fixed. This page compares them head to head at the ongoing price, not the first-box price.
- Cooked-only comparison: raw, dehydrated and kibble ranked separately
- Prices recorded at each brand's final review step, surcharges included
- The cheaper brand changes with dog size, so check the bands below
Price up your dog
Your dog's real bill
✓ PRICES VERIFIED 13 JUL 2026
| Brand | Intro price/day | Real price/day | Per month | First year | Deal link |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Butternut BoxBest valuefresh cooked | £3.26 | £99.23 | £1,144.26 | View deal | |
| Different Dogfresh cooked | £3.45 | £105.02 | £1,250.80 | View deal |
Prices sampled from each brand's own quote process, last verified 13 July 2026. Intro prices shown struck through because they only last a few weeks . The real price is what you'll pay from then on. Age, activity and neutering change how much food your dog needs; we price those portions from each brand's sampled pricing curve.
Which cooked brand is cheaper for your dog
These two price close enough together that neither is simply "the cheap one". Their curves cross, so the cheaper brand depends on how much food your dog eats. Ongoing prices per day for a neutered adult dog on typical walks, from the same sampled models the calculator uses.
| Dog | Butternut BoxGently cooked | Different DogGently cooked |
|---|---|---|
| Chihuahua3kg | £1.80 | £1.70 (cheapest for this dog) |
| Dachshund9kg | £2.52 (cheapest for this dog) | £2.74 |
| Cocker Spaniel14kg | £3.26 (cheapest for this dog) | £3.45 |
| Border Collie19kg | £3.77 (cheapest for this dog) | £3.83 |
| Labrador30kg | £4.88 | £4.65 (cheapest for this dog) |
| Rottweiler40kg | £5.40 | £5.09 (cheapest for this dog) |
Cheapest by weight
- 2–4kgDifferent Dog
- 5–21kgButternut Box
- 22–60kgDifferent Dog
Both brands cook human-grade ingredients to order and portion to your dog, so what separates them on price is how each one's rate per gram falls as portions grow, not the food being fundamentally different.
What gently cooked actually means
Gently cooked food is made from human-grade meat and vegetables cooked at a lower temperature than kibble, then portioned into your dog's daily servings and delivered chilled or frozen. It looks like food because it is: no extrusion, no high-heat processing, and a fridge or freezer shelf given over to the dog.
That's also why it's the priciest format we track. You're paying to cook, portion, chill and ship water-heavy food to your door. For a 14kg adult, cooked plans ran £3.26–£3.45 a day in our July 2026 sampling, against £2.09 for raw and £2.35 for dehydrated, roughly 40–60% more than the cheaper formats for the same dog.
Comparing the two fairly
The brands portion almost identically. For the same 14kg adult, Butternut Box built a 396g daily portion and Different Dog 400g, both working to roughly the same daily calories, so the price gap between them is a genuine price gap, not one brand serving less food for less money.
Menu selection is where quotes diverge from expectations. Butternut Box prices recipes individually, and the default four-recipe selection we sampled carried about £0.25 a day over a base-recipe plan for a mid-size dog; we record the price with the defaults in place, because that's what you pay unless you edit the menu yourself. Different Dog applied a larger discount in the funnel than its site advertised when we sampled it (35% against an advertised 30%), which is exactly the kind of thing that makes published comparisons go stale.
Our figures are for the full-diet plans on both brands, since that's the like-for-like comparison against raw and dehydrated. Different Dog also offers a Partial Diet (topper) tier at roughly half the portion, which brings the daily cost down accordingly.
Cheapest gently cooked food for a typical 14kg adult dog
Butternut Box£3.26/day · £99.23/month ongoing
Brands we track that aren't on this page
This comparison covers gently cooked food only. The other 3 brands we track sell something different, so ranking them here would answer a question you didn't ask. You should still know they're there:
- Bella & DukeRawUncooked meat, bone and offal, delivered frozen.
- Pure Pet FoodDehydratedWhole ingredients air-dried and rehydrated with warm water at home, so no freezer space is needed.
- tails.comPersonalised kibbleA dry food blended to your dog's profile and delivered on subscription. It sits in a different category from fresh food, and is consistently the cheapest option we track.
Compare a different kind of food
Gently cooked dog food: your questions
Is Butternut Box or Different Dog cheaper?
It depends on your dog's size: their price curves cross, so neither is cheaper across the board. For a typical 14kg adult, Butternut Box came out cheaper at about £3.26 a day against £3.45 (July 2026 sampling), but the order reverses for the largest dogs. The size bands on this page show which brand leads at which weight, and the calculator gives the figure for your dog.
What is gently cooked dog food?
Human-grade meat and vegetables cooked at low temperature, portioned to your dog's daily calorie needs and delivered chilled or frozen. It's less processed than kibble and doesn't carry the handling and freezer demands of raw. Both UK brands we track cook to order rather than holding stock.
How much more does gently cooked cost than raw or dehydrated?
Roughly 40–60% more for a mid-size dog. For a 14kg adult in our July 2026 sampling: £3.26–£3.45 a day for cooked, against £2.35 for dehydrated (Pure Pet Food) and £2.09 for raw (Bella & Duke). The gap narrows for very large dogs, where raw pricing catches up with cooked.
Why is my Butternut Box quote higher than the price I was shown?
Two things usually explain it. The headline price is the introductory one, which applies to the first boxes only, and the ongoing price is what you'll pay from then on. And recipes are priced individually: the default selection we sampled included two premium recipes, about £0.25 a day above a base-recipe plan for a mid-size dog. Swapping to base recipes brings the daily price down; our figures assume the defaults, because that's what most people are quoted.
Do Butternut Box and Different Dog feed the same amount?
Very nearly. For the same 14kg adult dog, Butternut Box portioned 396g a day and Different Dog 400g, both working to roughly 670 kcal. Across the wider fresh market portion engines can differ by 10–20% for one dog, so that's an unusually close match, and it makes these two a genuine like-for-like price comparison.