Last Updated on February 29, 2024 by Kieran Beckles
Are you ready to sign up to a fresh dog food delivery company but you’re torn between The Pets Table and Spot and Tango when trying to decide the best human grade dog food for your pet?
We made the decision to ditch Copper and Skye’s regular dog food such as traditional kibble and wet food found at the local pet store in favour of a fresh food diet after our female Alaskan Klee Kai continued to struggle with digestive issues and a sensitive tummy.
Our Alaskan Klee Kai dogs can be picky eaters, especially Skye, and we spent a lot of money on vet bills because Skye would refused to eat her regular dry food or wet food, leading to health issues and digestive problems.
However, we’ve saved a lot of money on vet bills since switching to fresh dog food because Copper and Skye thrive eating human grade dog food tailored to their specific requirements. We haven’t looked back since making the switch in 2020!
In this article, we’re going to compare Spot and Tango’s fresh food meals and their dry food called UnKibble to The Pets Table, who offer fresh recipes and air dried dog food to cater to dogs with different preferences.
CUT TO THE CHASE: We recommend Spot and Tango and you can save 50% on your first order when you use this link.
Who Is The Pets Table?
The Pets Table are one of the newest fresh dog food companies in the pet space after launching their fresh dog food delivery service in 2023.
Powered by Hello Fresh who you’ll likely be familiar with already, The Pets Table provide fresh recipes and air dried food made from human grade ingredients, formulated by veterinarians and shipped direct to your doorstep.
The Pets Table explain on their website that their fresh meals are made with high quality meat, superfoods and vitamin A to keep your dog healthy, high in fiber with probiotics for gut health and made in the USA using the world’s finest ingredients.
If you’re paying a premium price for fresh dog food, you want your dog food to be formulated to meet your pet’s needs. The Pets Table is balanced and complete for all life stages, having been developed by veterinary nutritionists to meet American Feed Control Official standards.
To get started with The Pets Table, you’ll need to answer key questions about your dog such as your dog’s age, dog’s weight, dog’s breed, dog’s diet at the moment and your dog’s health. Once they know key details about your dog, they’ll suggest four different meal plans.
Pet owners can pick between their Fresh plan (100% fresh meals), Air Dried plan (100% dry dog food), Mixed plan (50% fresh meals and 50% dry dog food) and Half Fresh plan (50% fresh meals).
The Pets Table offers three fresh food recipes – Chicken Casserole with green beans, Turkey Casserole with broccoli and Beef Stew with carrots. The Pets Table offers two air dried recipes Chicken & Sweet Potato and Beef & Berries.
The Pets Table gives pet owners a lot of flexibility in terms of the type of fresh pet food they want to give to their dogs and how much their fresh dog food delivery subscription will cost. For example, the fresh plan is the most expensive option and the Air Dried plan is the most affordable option.
Once you’ve decided upon your plan, The Pets Table will ship your dog food direct to your door. Your first box will contain a meal container, feeding and transition guidelines and your fresh dog food delivery.
Our Verdict On The Pets Table
Having previously ordered human food from Hello Fresh, I was eager to give The Pets Table a go to see how their fresh dog food delivery service compared to their meal delivery service.
If you’ve ever signed up to Hello Fresh, you’ll be familiar with the appearance and format of the ordering process, except The Pets Table ask for key details about your dog just like other dog food brands.
Just like most dog food subscription services, The Pets Table will tailor their recipes to your dog’s needs but the decision lies with pet owners when it comes to which meal plan to select.
I appreciate just the range of meal plans available which caters to each pet owner and their budget. If you want to try healthy dog food but you can’t afford fresh food diet, you can opt for an air dried diet. Maybe your dog prefers dry food or you’ve got limited freezer space.
When I got my hands on my first delivery of The Pets Table, I was impressed to see The Pets Table offer a portion guideline on each fresh food meal pouch to dog owners know exactly how much to feed at each mealtime. There didn’t appear to be a pre-portioned element to their dry dog food, though.
The Pets Table provided a meal container which was a thoughtful inclusion because pet parents don’t want to have leftover dog food causing a mess in their fridge. Surprisingly, few dog food delivery services provide a meal container to store defrosted or thawed fresh dog food.
When it came to the taste test, The Pets Table was hit and miss with my Alaskan Klee Kai. Copper was happy to eat The Pets Table but Skye didn’t show much interest in their fresh dog food meals. My picky eater left most of her fresh food.
If you’ve got picky eaters, I’d recommend avoiding the turkey recipe and going for the beef recipe or chicken recipe. I had slightly better luck with these two recipes – but Skye wouldn’t touch the turkey recipe.
Who Is Spot And Tango?
Spot and Tango are one of the more established fresh dog food brands in the USA, having earned a reputation for providing human grade dog food in both a fresh food format and a dry dog food format.
Spot and Tango started by providing fresh dog food meals to dog owners who wanted to feed fresh, before launching their dry dog food range called UnKibble that still contains fresh ingredients.
Unlike regular dry dog food you find at your local pet store or supermarket, Spot and Tango only use human grade ingredients in their limited-ingredient recipes, transparently displaying each ingredient on clear labelling on their fresh meals and their UnKibble dry dog food. It’s human food we’d eat!
Crucially, Spot and Tango don’t use any artificial flavors, artificial additives, meat meals or preservatives in their fresh food or dry food that could be harmful to your dog’s health. You’ll only find human grade ingredients such as brown rice, sweet potatoes and high quality meat.
Just like most dog food delivery companies, dog owners will need to answer key questions about their dogs, share their dog’s current food, and whether you need your pup to lose weight or gain weight. Spot and Tango will be able to tailor their meals to meet your furry friend’s needs.
Spot and Tango offer three fresh recipes – Turkey & Red Quinoa, Beef & Millet and Lamb & Brown rice. There are four UnKibble recipes if you prefer to go with dry dog food: Cod & Salmon, Beef & Barley, Chicken & Brown Rice and Turkey & Sweet Potato.
To get started with Spot and Tango’s fresh meals or UnKibble recipes, you’ll need to decide which pet food format you’d like to try during ordering process and providing all the details about your dog to the fresh dog food delivery brand.
When you get your first box, you’ll find Spot and Tango’s fresh dog food is delivered frozen and you’ll need to store most of the meals in the freezer but set a few aside to thaw in the fridge. If you go for UnKibble, their dry dog food is shelf stable and you can just pop it in the cupboard.
I like that UnKibble provide a custom scooper made to meet your dog’s specific requirements – so you can’t overfeed or underfeed your dog. UnKibble is ready to serve! Their fresh meals need to be defrosted and pet owners have to consult the feeding guidelines for your pup to get the portions right.
Our Verdict On Spot And Tango
When we moved back to the USA from the UK and started our search to find the best fresh dog food, Spot and Tango was one of the first dog food delivery services we tried.
Their sign-up process was simple but thorough with clear explanations and transparent descriptions of how my Alaskan Klee Kai’s food was being made and which human grade ingredients were in the recipes.
Dog owners need to navigate to Spot and Tango’s fresh recipes or UnKibble recipes before starting the sign up process. You don’t get the option to combine the two pet food formats like The Pets Table. However, they do provide the option to feed their fresh meals as a topper (effectively a half fresh plan).
When I received my first boxes (I ordered both fresh recipes and UnKibble for review purposes), I could clearly see the transparent labelling on each fresh food meal which made me feel good that I was truly feeding human grade dog food.
While I loved having a custom scooper to feed UnKibble to Copper and Skye, I was a little disappointed that Spot and Tango didn’t make feeding their fresh meals a little easier. There was no pre-portion element on the meal pouch or custom scooper for their fresh food.
Having said that, Copper and Skye really enjoyed eating Spot and Tango’s fresh dog food, particularly the beef recipe and the chicken recipe. The meal pouches were easy to store in my fridge and freezer thanks to the stackable square shape.
When I opened up the bag of UnKibble, I liked seeing specks of green and orange in each UnKibble nugget to display the real human grade ingredients in the dry food. Skye liked the beef and chicken recipes but wasn’t a big fan of the fish and turkey recipes.
The Pets Table Vs Spot And Tango: Price breakdown
Before I give my verdict, I want to quickly share how much I paid for The Pets Table and Spot And Tango to give you an idea on the price difference.
Let’s start with The Pets Table – to feed 100% fresh to my Klee Kai would cost $255.40 a month, to feed 100% air dried would cost $154.84, but I opted for the mixed plan so I could try both pet food formats. This cost me $217.56.
If you’ve got multiple dogs, The Pets Table require dog owners to complete separate meal plans and separate subscriptions. This is a little inconvenient and different to most dog food delivery services. The prices shared above involve me combining the cost of both subscription plans.
As I mentioned above, you can’t combine Spot and Tango’s fresh meals with their UnKibble range in the same subscription plan. You’ll need to complete individual subscription plans for both pet food formats if you want to try both.
Spot and Tango’s fresh meals for Copper set me back $29.64 a week or $118.58 a month. Skye’s fresh dog food meals cost me $29.64 a week or $118.58 a month (so there was no difference in price despite their different weight goals, which I found interesting). Overall, I had to pay $237.16 a month.
When signing Copper and Skye up to UnKibble, I had to pay $18.96 a week or $75.72 a month for Copper’s UnKibble plan. Skye’s UnKibble plan cost me $20.27 a week or $81.10 a month. So that’s a total of $156.82 to feed UnKibble to my Alaskan Klee Kai.
If we compare the cost of the fresh food recipes, you can see that Spot and Tango is $18.24 cheaper per month or $218.88 cheaper over the course of a year. When examining feeding just dry dog food, The Pets Table is $1.98 cheaper per month and $23.76 cheaper over the course of a year.
Spot And Tango Vs The Pets Table: Our Verdict
We’ve reached the key part of our article – who do we recommend Spot and Tango or The Pets Table.
While I don’t believe either of these fresh dog food brands represents the best fresh dog food delivery service in the USA, I would go for Spot and Tango ahead of The Pets Table based upon my experience.
I appreciate Spot and Tango’s clear labelling and transparent explanations of their processes both online and when I received my first box of their fresh food and their dry dog food.
Feeding these two dog food delivery companies to my Alaskan Klee Kai, Spot and Tango passed the taste test but Skye refused to eat some of her Pets Table recipes.
Of course, every dog is different so it’s worth nothing your experience could be different to my experience with these two dog food delivery services.
While there wasn’t much of a difference in price between their dry dog food delivery service, Spot and Tango represented much better value when it came to their fresh dog food meals. They offer the same number of fresh recipes, but UnKibble has four dry food recipes but The Pets Table has just two.
If you’re looking to make a change to your dog’s diet and you believe in fresh food for dogs, I don’t think you’ll go wrong with either of these dog food brands.
But my preference would be Spot and Tango based upon how my picky eaters enjoyed their premium dog food more, the cost of their dog food delivery service and how I could sign up both of my dogs on the same subscription plan.
Where To Buy Spot And Tango?
If you’re ready to give Spot and Tango or UnKibble a try, you’ll need to head to their website to start the process of signing up to their fresh dog food delivery service or dry dog food delivery service. To start, you can visit their website here or via the button.
Do We Have A Discount For Spot And Tango?
We managed to secure a 50% discount for our Life With Klee Kai community which will automatically be applied when you click the button below or visit their website here.
Where To Buy The Pets Table?
Just like Spot and Tango, you’ll need to head to The Pets Table’s website to begin a subscription plan with this dog food company. To start, you can visit their website here or click the button.
Do We Have A Discount For The Pets Table?
We reached out to The Pets Table and managed to get a 50% discount for Life With Klee Kai readers. To save half on your first box, just hit the button or head to their website here.
Anything Else To Consider?
If you’re ready to ditch traditional kibble, stop making homemade dog food or just want to give dog food subscription services a try, I recommend speaking to your vet before you decide to sign up.
You can find out what your vet has to stay about the best dog food for your pet if your dog has food sensitivities, food allergies, or any other potential issues with introducing a new food.
Wrapping Up
We’ve reached the end of our article taking a look at Spot and Tango and the Pets Table.
My recommendation would be Spot and Tango based upon my experience trying these two fresh foods, with Copper and Skye enjoying Spot and Tango’s ready to serve meals.
Having said that, if you’re ditching your dog’s food whether it’s kibble or canned food, you’ll be feeding a fresher option with all the nutrients you’d expect to find in human grade dog food whether you go for Spot and Tango or The Pets Table.
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.