Last Updated on March 5, 2024 by Kieran Beckles
Have you been thinking about giving Butternut Box a try or you’re ready to switch new food but you want to know what’s the best Butternut Box alternative?
There’s been a welcome shift towards fresh dog food over the past couple of years in the UK and Europe as dog owners look to adopt a fresher approach to dog food for their pets.
If you’re familiar with the fresh dog food scene in the UK, you’ll almost certainly have heard of Butternut Box. They’re perhaps the leading fresh dog food delivery service in the UK after launching their tailor made dog food in 2015.
However, Butternut Box are facing increased competition from other dog food brands who are also looking to provide fresh dog food.
Before we go any further, I want to point out that I believe Butternut Box is the best dog food delivery company in the UK. Long-time readers and subscribers will be aware that we’ve fed Butternut Box to Copper and Skye over the past five years.
But we’ve also had the chance to try other dog food subscription services through social media campaigns.
In this article, I’m going to highlight some of the best alternatives to Butternut Box in the UK if you’re looking to find dog food that is similar to Butternut Box.
Why We Stuck With Butternut Box
Before I highlight some alternatives to Butternut Box, I want to explain why we stuck with the dog food delivery company through our time in the UK.
Perfect For Picky Dogs
Copper and Skye are fussy eaters and the latter has a sensitive tummy that didn’t do well on a dry dog food or wet dog food diet.
As business owners and parents, we didn’t have time to make home cooked meals but we really wanted to feed freshly cooked meals.
That’s how we found Butternut Box!
Convenience
Butternut Box have kept Copper and Skye fed for the best part of five years and whenever we’ve dabbled with the idea of making a change to their diet, we’ve always returned to Butternut Box.
Copper and Skye love their dog food and we like the convenience of dog food delivery. It’s super convenient for dog owners with busy lifestyles but want their dogs to eat home cooked meals.
We even invested in a second freezer to ensure we had sufficient freezer space to store all the recipes.
Ever-Expanding Menu
Butternut Box are constantly innovating and expanding their range of recipes. Seeing as Skye can be fussy, we love having the ability to rotate the protein source she’s eating.
Butternut Box gently cook their human grade ingredients to lock in nutritional goodness and flavour before the meals are frozen and shipped to your door.
There’s no denying that fresh food costs more than dry food or wet food but we’ve saved a lot of money on vet bills. There’s no dash to the emergency vet on the weekend because Skye isn’t eating!
Speak To Butternut Box
If you’ve been feeding Butternut Box to your dog and you’re thinking of making a change, I’d encourage you to give Butternut Box a call to see if they can suggest any changes before you make a change to your dog’s diet.
On the other hand, if you haven’t fed Butternut Box to your dog and you’re thinking about signing up for the first time, I’d encourage you to give it a try.
Butternut Box Sign Up Offer
If you’ve come across this article during your research and you haven’t already signed up to Butternut Box, I’ve got some good news for you.
You can save 50% on your first Butternut Box order and 50% on your second Butternut Box order when you click here or below. So you’re effectively getting a free box over the course of two orders and it gives you an opportunity to give Butternut Box for a significant amount of time to see if your dog likes their new food.
Best Alternatives To Butternut Box
Now that I’ve shared why I still rate Butternut Box as the UK’s top fresh dog food company, let’s look at the best alternatives if you’re ready to make a change.
Pure Pet Food
The Basics
Pure Pet Food offer dry dog food that can cater to pet parents who want to feed their dog meals using natural ingredients but don’t want to deal with the issue of freezer space.
Based in Yorkshire, Pure Pet Food have created tailor made dog food that can meet the requirements of your dog to ensure they’re living an active and healthy lifestyle.
How Pure Works
They only use human grade ingredients in their recipes that are cooked at low temperature to create their fresh dog food.
Pure Pet Food, just like Butternut Box, require dog owners to fill out a sign-up questionnaire so they can get to know your dog and their habits.
Once they’ve got the key details about your dog, Pure Pet Food will offer a suggested meal plan but you can still make changes before signing up to their subscription service.
How To Prepare Pure
Unlike Butternut Box, Pure send your dog’s gently cooked dog food in a bag with a scooper for the food and a scooper for the water.
You’ll have to do some work – you need to mix the food with some water to create your dog’s meals.
Once you’ve finished mixing, you can serve the fresh dog food to your dog and store the bag in a cool, dry space such as the cupboard.
To feed Pure to your dog, you won’t need to stress about freezer space. I think that’s a big pro – you can stick to dry food that uses natural ingredients and tailored to your dog.
Our Verdict
Copper and Skye did enjoy their Pure meals but there’s no escaping the fact that the dry food looks less fresh than Butternut Box’s meals.
Having said that, it’s cheaper, requires less space and Pure still have a stellar reputation with dog owners. Just check out their Trustpilot reviews to see how many dogs they’ve helped. Pure seem to be a big hit with picky dogs and dogs with sensitive tummies.
For that reason, I feel confident suggesting Pure Pet Food as an alternative to Butternut Box. You can read our Butternut Box Vs Pure dog food review here.
Where To Buy
You can only buy Pure Pet Food directly from their website. So you’ll need to sign up to their subscription plan by clicking this link and heading to their website.
New customers can get 30% off their first order and 10% off their second order when they click here or the button below.
Different Dog
The Basics
If you’ve been feeding Butternut Box and you’re ready to make a change but you want to stick with fresh dog food meals, Different Dog could be a great option.
Different Dog offer a truly premium dog food service with their hand-cooked dog meals that use human grade ingredients and shipped direct to your door.
Different Dog’s freshly cooked meals are made in their Shropshire kitchen using the same process as pet parents would use at home.
Their dogs meals contain the highest quality ingredients and are being gently cooked at just over 90 degrees before being frozen and shipped to your door.
It’s important to note Different Dog create recipes that a grain free, don’t contain fillers or legumes.
Different Dog have a wide range of fresh dog meals to choose from as well as offering a Health plus range that specifically targets health conditions. Some of their recipes include Braised Beef, Lamb Hotpot and Pork Ragu.
How Different Dog Work
To get started with Different Dog like most fresh dog food companies, you’ll need to fill out their questionnaire so they can get to know your dog, your dog’s details, dog’s health and whether you’ve got picky eaters.
Once you’ve answer all their questioned, you can choose your Different Dog’s meals and decide to the size of the delivery and the frequency of delivery.
At this stage, it’s important to remember the majority of your Different Dog meals will need to be stored in the freezer. So make sure you’ve got sufficient freezer space before deciding upon the frequency and size of your Different Dog food delivery.
Different Dog do offer a subscription service but you’re able to get in touch with them if you want to cancel or pause your deliveries.
How To Prepare Different Dog
Once you receive your Different Dog meals, you’ll need to pop the majority of them in the freezer apart from three or four to defrost in the fridge before pet owners can serve to their dogs.
Like most fresh dog food brands, Different Dog tailor your dog’s meals to meet their specific needs but they aren’t truly pre portioned.
You’ll need to follow their feeding guidelines to make sure you don’t overfeed their great food (which is easy to do because your dog will likely love it).
It can get a little messy serving thawed food into your dog’s bowl and having to store half-open meal pouches in your fridge.
Our Verdict
In our search to find the best dog food for Copper and Skye, we gave Different Dog a try for the best part of six months before switching back to Butternut Box.
There was little doubt that Different Dog’s fresh meals used the highest quality, human grade ingredients. We could easily spot all the healthy ingredients which made us feel good about the fresh dog foods.
Copper and Skye enjoyed eating Different Dog just as much as Butternut Box’s meals. I wouldn’t say there was a lot of difference in terms of their mealtime excitement.
So from a dog’s perspective, Different Dog is a great option and good for your dog’s health. They’ve got ample grain free recipes, too.
However, I was slightly disappointed their meals weren’t stored in pre portioned meal pouches. As a result, I did have to measure out Copper and Skye’s dog food.
While I like Different Dog care about their social and environmental performance, their meal containers could be a little messy in the fridge once defrosted.
Different Dog offer some of the best fresh dog foods in the pet food industry in the UK but most dog owners will likely find their meals quite expensive.
If you’ve got a big monthly budget for dog foods, I’d 100% recommend giving Different Dog a try. Of all the pet foods I’ve reviewed, they’re one of the best. Their food is certainly on a par with Butternut Box – if not better.
While they don’t offer a free box, you can get a trial delivery or even use their food as a tasty topper before committing to regular deliveries.
However, Different Dog is also one of the most expensive of all the dog foods that I’ve tried and tested.
To learn more about how Different Dog compares to Butternut Box, you can read my comparison dog food review here.
Where To Buy
You can only buy Different Dog direct from their website. To get started, you’ll need to fill out their questionnaire before receiving your meal plan. You can start your Different Dog journey by clicking this link.
Different Dog Coupon Code Or Discount?
We reached out to Different Dog and managed to secure an exclusive discount for our Life With Klee Kai community.
You can save 40% on your first and second box when you click this link or the button below and use the coupon code “LWKKCC40”.
Naturaw
The Basics
The idea of raw dog food is a controversial one. You’ll find some dog owners who swear by the benefits of a raw fed diet, while other pet parents (or professionals) have reservations about feeding raw.
We’ve always been interested in a raw food diet but ultimately didn’t want to deal with some of the hassles associated with these meat meals.
With young children at home and a person with auto immune issues, it’s a particular food format that we’ve been reluctant to try.
But if we were to make the switch to raw dog food, we’d consider Naturaw.
They’re a fresh dog food delivery company who offer the opportunity to feed raw in a convenient way.
How Naturaw Works
Natural use 100% British meat that is sourced from high welfare British farms. So you can feel good that your dog’s meals contain human grade ingredients sourced from responsible suppliers.
Their raw food recipes are vet approved so you can have peace of mind that your canine companion is eating a healthy diet comprised of quality ingredients.
Naturaw offer meat-only recipes but include balanced and complete meals that contain fruit, vegetables and other superfoods.
They use plastic-free packaging that is compostable and they’re trailblazers when it comes to their sustainable practises (their factory is solar powered!).
How To Prepare Naturaw
Naturaw’s meals are stored in recycable packaging that you’ll have to open and scoop the raw meat from the pouch into your dog’s bowls.
It’s important to be very careful handling raw food and practise good hygeine. You’ll want to keep young children out of the way.
I’d recommend investing in tupperware to place the rest of the raw meat if you don’t use all the raw food in one go because it can get messy.
Our Verdict
Naturaw believe dogs should be eating fresh, natural, raw food – not processed dog food that contains additives, nasties and other bad stuff.
As dog owners, we really believe in feeding fresh dog food and we were inspired to give raw food a try once we read more about Naturaw.
We loved that they use human grade ingredients in a raw food diet before your dog food is delivered direct to your door.
What makes their dog food delivery service stand out is their eco-friendly approach (by far the most sustainable of the dog food brands we’ve encountered).
While their green approach is great, Copper and Skye enjoyed their dog food which came as a surprise.
Previously our Alaskan Klee Kai have been reluctant to try raw food but Copper and Skye loved Naturaw.
Like a lot of dog food that uses human grade ingredients, tailored to your dog, their service isn’t cheap. You’ll have to pay more than regular dog food companies who offer dry dog food or wet food.
Where To Buy
If you’re interesting in giving Naturaw a try, you can place an order through their website. You can click here or hit the button below to get started.
We contacted Naturaw and secured a £5 discount off your first order when you use the discount code “KLEEKAI” at the checkout.
Forthglade
The Basics
When you research Butternut Box, you’ll often see their dog food pitched against Forthglade.
They’re a well-established dog food brand in the UK thanks to their range of wet dog food, dry kibble, fresh meals and other supplementary products.
Forthglade’s unique selling point is perhaps that their dog food is grain free. So whether you opt for dry kibble or wet dog food, your dog won’t be eating grain!
How Forthglade Works
Their website explains that their recipes cater to dogs of all different ages, whether you’ve got a puppy, adult or senior dog.
Dog owners who want adopt a fresher approach will be encouraged to learn Forthglade’s recipes don’t contain any additives or nasties.
They only use natural ingredients that are cooked in the kitchens in Devon before being sold online or in your local supermarket.
How To Prepare Forthglade
Forthglade don’t offer the same customization as Butternut Box, Pure Pet Food or Naturaw.
You’ll need to pay close attention to your dog’s meal and see how much they’ll need to eat based upon their breed or weight.
If you don’t want to faff around with a sign-up questionnaire, you may appreciate Forthglade’s frictionless approach. You can even order Forthglade from Amazon!
Our Verdict
We’ve tried Forthglade’s complete meals with mixed success.
Copper liked his Forthglade meals but Skye was a bit more particular with their food.
Having said that, I’ve noticed a lot of dog owners giving Forthglade good reviews so I wanted to include them as an option for British pet parents.
If you don’t want the hassle of filling out answers about your dog, you may like the simplicity of heading to Amazon and placing an order.
While their meals aren’t tailored to your dog, they still use quality ingredients so you can feel good about your dog’s food.
Where To Buy
You can buy Forthglade on Amazon where they have a store page. So it’s pretty simple to get their dog food if you already have an Amazon account. To place an order, click here or hit the button below.
The Bottom Line
If you’ve made your decision to ditch dry food or wet food and you’re looking to find dog food similar to Butternut Box, we’ve highlighted four alternatives.
Our top picks would be Pure Pet Food and Different Dog because they offer tailored fresh dog food recipes to British dogs.
Pure are an affordable air-dried dog food option for pet parents who want to stick with dry dog food but want to feed healthy meals.
Their air-dried food is gently cooked, your dog’s meals are tailored and shipped direct to your door, you don’t need freezer space because their meals can be stored in the cupboard or any cool, dry place.
However, you will need to prepare your dog’s meals which could be inconvenient for some dog owners.
Different Dog offer perhaps some of the best dog food in the UK and are more than worthy rivals to Butternut Box.
Copper and Skye loved eating their meals and it was clear to us that Different Dog’s meals are made with the highest quality ingredients because of the flavour and smell.
However, Different Dog are also one of the most expensive dog food brands in the UK and require freezer space to store their meals.
Having said that, new Different Dog customers can save 40% on their first and second orders with our coupon code “LWKKCC40” via this link or the button below.
If you decide to go with Naturaw or Forthglade, you won’t go wrong either.
But ultimately, I’d encourage you to stick with Butternut Box based upon our positive experience with Copper and Skye.
Kieran runs Life With Klee Kai on social media and other online platforms alongside his wife Yasmin. With over 10 years of experience as a journalist and a passionate dog owner, Kieran loves to combine his passion for pets and writing to share useful insights and product reviews to help other dog owners.