The Honest Kitchen Cat Food Review 2024

The Honest Kitchen is the world’s first human-grade pet food for dogs and cats. Its recipes only use ingredients that are human edible, non-GMO, and thoughtfully sourced. They also follow human safety food standards, which have over 100 requirements!

For more than 20 years, The Honest Kitchen has been helping as many companion animals as possible achieve good health through good food. From its founder’s kitchen, it has grown to become a popular pet food brand that’s recommended by veterinarians and loved by pet parents. And it's even recommended by pet nutrition expert and one of Wag!’s veterinary consultants, Dr. Georgia Jeremiah!

Is The Honest Kitchen right for your cat? Let’s take a look at this brand’s recipes, pros and cons, and more to help you decide!

The Honest Kitchen offers more than a dozen products for cats that were created with a veterinary nutritionist. Let’s see what they are! 

The Honest Kitchen Clusters Dry Cat Food

Whole Food Clusters are the first ever 100% human-grade dry cat food. These protein-packed recipes feature turkey or chicken as the first ingredient. They also include cranberries to promote urinary tract health, flaxseeds to help reduce hairballs, and probiotics to support digestion. After the ingredients are mixed and cold-pressed into bite-sized clusters, they’re then baked and gently dehydrated to preserve important nutrients. 

The Honest Kitchen Clusters Dry Cat Food is available in the following flavors:

• Grain Free Turkey & Chicken Clusters
• Grain Free Chicken & Whitefish Clusters
• Grain Free Chicken Clusters

The Honest Kitchen Dehydrated Cat Food

This range is ideal for cats who need to avoid dry food and lets pet parents feed healthy, homemade meals to their moggies without having to cook. All you have to do is add water, stir, wait a few minutes, and serve. You can also customize the consistency to your cat’s liking by adding more or less water. Each high-protein recipe lists chicken or turkey as the first ingredient and is boosted with probiotics for better digestion and bone broth for extra flavor. 

The Honest Kitchen Dehydrated Cat Food is available in the following flavors:

• Grain Free Chicken & Fish Recipe
• Grain Free Chicken Recipe
• Grain Free Turkey Recipe

The Honest Kitchen Wet Cat Food

The Honest Kitchen’s wet cat food comes in two lip-smacking varieties: minced and pâté. The minced recipes feature chunks simmered in savory bone broth gravy, while the pâtés have a smoother texture. Both varieties are made with whole muscle and organ meats, with chicken, turkey, salmon, or beef as the first ingredient. These recipes also contain fruits and vegetables such as pumpkin, carrots, blueberries, and cranberries, as well as added vitamins and minerals for extra nutrition.

The Honest Kitchen Wet Cat Food is available in the following flavors:

• Minced Chicken in Bone Broth Gravy
• Minced Turkey in Bone Broth Gravy
• Minced Turkey, Chicken & Duck in Bone Broth Gravy
• Minced Chicken & Salmon in Bone Broth Gravy
• Minced Salmon & Cod in Fish Broth Gravy
• Grain Free Chicken Câté (Pâté)
• Grain Free Turkey Câté (Pâté)
• Grain Free Beef & Chicken Câté (Pâté)
• Grain Free Salmon & Turkey Câté (Pâté)
• Grain Free Salmon & Cod Câté (Pâté)

The Honest Kitchen Cat Toppers

Variety is the spice of life, and sometimes it’s good to “mmmix” it up! These toppers can be given as a treat or added to your cat’s regular meal to make it a bit more special. Made with only four ingredients and without any meat meals, these toppers provide a boost of protein with salmon, pollock, chicken, and duck. 

The Honest Kitchen Cat Toppers are available in the following flavors:

• MMMixers Salmon & Pollock
• MMMixers Chicken & Duck

Here are some reasons that make The Honest Kitchen a “purrific” pet food brand!

The first human-grade pet food

The Honest Kitchen is the world’s first human-grade food for companion animals. This means that it’s made in a human food facility, uses the same quality ingredients as people food, and meets the same strict standards as people food. Finished products are also tested at an independent third-party lab for food safety and quality. 

High-quality ingredients

The Honest Kitchen uses only the best ingredients from trusted suppliers who must follow a strict code of conduct. All of its cat food recipes contain no feed-grade ingredients, GMOs, fillers, meat meals, artificial preservatives, artificial colors or flavors, corn, wheat, or soy.

Vet recommended

Dr. Georgia Jeremiah, pet nutrition expert and one of Wag!’s veterinary consultants, personally recommends The Honest Kitchen to her clients. “The Honest Kitchen offers high-protein, human-grade cat food that's grain-free and devoid of artificial preservatives, GMOs, corn, wheat, and soy. Prioritizing meat as the first ingredient, their range includes both wet and dry varieties in multiple flavors to satisfy picky eaters - all with a money-back guarantee.”

Certified B Corporation

The Honest Kitchen is a Certified B Corporation, which means that it meets the highest standards of social and environmental performance. For example, the company uses solar energy and renewable packaging materials, has a program to reduce food waste, chooses local suppliers when possible, and gives its employees volunteer time off.

Money-back guarantee

Because The Honest Kitchen wants pet parents to find the right recipe for their furkiddos, all of its recipes come with a 90-day money-back guarantee. Purchases made on the company’s website are eligible for returns if at least half of the product is still in the bag or box. 

Here are some things to consider before purchasing The Honest Kitchen.

Not for finicky eaters

The most common complaint pet parents have about The Honest Kitchen cat food is that their cats won’t eat it. While cat moms and dads love the healthy ingredients, some felines turned their noses up at the food.

Small clusters

A few pet parents found the Whole Food Clusters too small and said that their cats could swallow them whole without chewing.

Lack of senior recipes

Only two recipes are suitable for senior cats: Minced Salmon & Cod in Fish Broth Gravy and Grain Free Salmon & Cod Câté (Pâté).

“I am fostering 2 four month old kittens and the vet said to continue feeding them this food. They love it and their coats are amazing looking. They don’t have that crazy kitten fur. They look like mini adult cats, being they look so healthy. I’ve tried feeding this food to my senior cat that eats everything and he refused it several times. I waited a week and separately tried feeding it to my 2 four year old cats and they won’t touch it. I wish they would eat it [because] the food looks and smells like a quality product. Especially if the vet recommends it. [Oh] well, I will continue feeding it to the kittens who love it.”

“One of my cats loved it right away. I had to put a treat on top for my other cat to try it. He seems to like the turkey flavor better. I like the fact that it's human grade and made in the USA.”

“My cat had been struggling with diarrhea on and off for weeks. I was trying so many different brands, wet and dry. This brand was the only food that worked. Healthy stool within a week and she loves both the turkey and chicken. Thank you [Honest Kitchen] for making such a healthy product!”

Read more reviews on Chewy.

The Honest Kitchen began in 2002 in Lucy Postins’ kitchen. Mosi, her Rhodesian Ridgeback, had frequent skin problems and ear infections, and Lucy knew that changing his diet could help him feel better. Since there were no healthy, whole-food options for pets on the market back then, she decided to make it herself and started experimenting with recipes.

When Mosi’s health improved, Lucy realized other pets could also benefit from a diet with human-grade ingredients. What began as a way to help her dog evolved into a company, and Lucy set about finding suppliers of human edible ingredients and met with human food producers. 

Because human-grade pet food was unheard of at the time, The Honest Kitchen had to overcome several regulatory hurdles to be recognized as such. In 2007, the Ohio Department of Agriculture denied the company a license to sell its products in Ohio, stating that the human grade label was misleading. The Honest Kitchen had to take the department to court, eventually winning the right to commercial free speech.

Over the years, The Honest Kitchen has remained true to its mission. According to Lucy, “No matter how popular we become or how many products we offer, we’ll never move away from my original promise — to bring the highest quality standards of ‘people food’ to foods made for pets.”

The Honest Kitchen has had one recall in its history. In February 2013, the company voluntarily recalled five lots of its Verve, Zeal, and Thrive dog food products due to possible Salmonella contamination. Though no illnesses were reported, The Honest Kitchen took this precautionary action after learning that one of its suppliers had recalled a batch of parsley that may contain the bacteria. 

Following this recall, The Honest Kitchen stopped purchasing any ingredients from the supplier. It also added extra steps to its food safety program, i.e., steaming all dehydrated leafy greens and conducting additional tests on all leafy greens upon delivery.

The Honest Kitchen also advised customers to discard the recalled products and mail the UPC and lot code from the packaging for a replacement or full refund.