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Viva Raw Dog Food Review 2025
Written by Emily Bayne
Veterinary reviewed by:
Published: 02/18/2025, edited: 02/18/2025
The Wag! team conducts independent research and consults pet experts to curate our recommendations. This content is supported by our affiliate pet partners and we may receive a commission on the links provided.
Overview
Everywhere you turn, a new company is cropping up with recipes claiming to resemble your dog's ancestral diet more closely than the next. Raw recipes are a huge selling point for these brands, with more and more customers switching up their pup's diet. Viva Raw is one of the newest raw dog food brands to hit the market.
Viva Raw recipes are produced in small batches and have impressive ingredient lists, including meats like duck and rabbit, organic veggies, and all-natural supplements. But is this dog food too good to be true? Read on for our full unbiased review of Viva Raw dog food, including a deep dive into the brand's history, sourcing practices, and recall history.
Viva Raw dog food product ranges and flavors
Viva Raw dog food
Viva Raw's signature line consists of six recipes, five of which are tailored to the nutritional needs of adults and one specially made for growing puppies and pregnant or new mothers. Four of these recipes come in ground or chunked versions to cater to those texture-picky pups. (The puppy and rabbit recipes are only available in their ground formulation at this time.) Since these recipes are fully raw, they are packed in air-tight packages and shipped frozen to their consumers.
Unlike the Vive Pure line, Viva Raw's signature line contains organic fruits, veggies, and supplements in addition to their signature meat blends. Turkey muscle meat, organs, and bone comprise a whopping 90% of this recipe, followed by fiber-rich organic produce like carrots, cranberries, broccoli, and green beans. flaxseed oil, cod oil, and New Zealand green mussels are added to beef up the omega fatty acid content.
Viva Raw also adds live probiotics and ginger to help with digestion and form healthy stools. These recipes range between 57.3% and 64.4% protein, with the puppy and turkey recipes being the highest and the rabbit and beef being the lowest in protein. The fat content ranges between 24.9% and 34.4%, with the puppy recipe being the lowest in fat and the turkey recipe having the highest fat content.
If you're on the fence about which recipe to buy, you'll be happy to know that this company offers a trial box with 2 packs of each flavor so your pooch can test them all.
Viva Raw dog food flavors:
- Chicken
- Turkey
- Beef
- Duck
- Rabbit
- Puppy Beef & Turkey
Viva Raw Beef Dog Food
Viva Pure dog food
Viva Pure is Viva Raw's answer to the need for limited-ingredient, allergen-friendly dog food. This line has five separate ground recipes: chicken, turkey, duck, beef, and rabbit. These recipes are sold in 1 lb bricks and range from $5.75 to 9.50 per lb, with their chicken recipe being the least expensive, and the rabbit recipe being the most.
As the name Pure suggests, these recipes are comprised entirely of the named animal protein on the recipe. The recipes contain a mix of muscle tissue, organs (like liver and gizzards), and finely ground bones (a great source of calcium!) Muscle meat is the ideal protein source for dogs, and organ meat adds tons of flavor, minerals, and fat, which are great energy sources for dogs. Like their signature line, these recipes also have added live probiotics for gut health.
The protein content in these recipes ranges between 63% and 67% on a dry matter basis, one of the highest we've seen when reviewing dog foods. The fat content is also quite high, ranging between 24.4% and 34.6%.
While we are happy that these recipes have no cheap bulking agents (like corn, wheat, soy, and peas), it is essential to note that these are NOT complete and balanced. Likewise, these recipes are indicated for supplemental feeding only and are not formulated according to AAFCO guidelines.
According to their website, "These recipes are prey model-based mixes (80% muscle, 10% organ, 10% bone) without added veggies or supplements, so you'll need to add your own to make them complete and balanced."
Feeding this food without additional supplements can predispose your dog to vitamin or mineral deficiencies. Moreover, ensuring your dog gets the appropriate amounts of all their micro- and macro-nutrients is very difficult since dogs have complex needs.
Viva Pure dog food flavors:
- Chicken
- Turkey
- Beef
- Duck
- Rabbit
Viva Pure Rabbit Dog Food
Why Wag! likes Viva Raw dog food
No plant proteins
This food has an impressive array of high-quality animal meats, organs, and organic veggies, but what's equally as refreshing is what isn't in the recipe. We did not find any of the usual suspects when searching for plant-based proteins. Often, lower-quality brands will beef up their recipes with peas or other legumes to increase protein while reducing costs (let's face it, meat is expensive!) We're happy to announce that Viva Raw products don't contain any legumes or legume derivatives.
Thoughtful ingredient sourcing
Viva Raw uses humanely raised meats and USDA-inspected ingredients for its recipes. Viva Raw even has videos of the farms it uses on its website. Viva Raw says, "All of our fruits & vegetables are certified organic, and all of our natural supplements are certified organic or wild-caught when possible (for marine products like fish oil or cod liver oil)."
Compact packaging
Customers are big fans of the convenient, vacuum-sealed 1 lb bricks of food. The convenient packaging means you can thaw just what you need for the day and ensure your fur-baby gets the freshest food possible.
Finely ground bones
One of the reasons we have beef (pun intended) with homemade raw diets is that many pet parents choose to include raw bones. While bones are a great source of calcium, they're also incredibly dangerous since they can cause intestinal obstructions and pose a choking risk. Viva Raw includes bones for the added calcium and minerals, but they grind them fine enough to prevent the risks associated with whole or splintered raw bones.
Concerns & considerations
Viva Pure is not complete and balanced
Viva Pure is formulated for dogs with food allergies, so it is a limited meat-only recipe without any added vitamins, minerals, fruits, or veggies. They encourage pet parents to add additional supplements or foods to these recipes to ensure against nutritional deficiencies. Dogs have complex nutritional needs, and it is easy to under or overdo it when supplementing. We advise against homemade diets for this very reason!
Only available through their website
Currently, Viva Raw is not sold through Chewy or other big-name pet retailers. Due to the product being shipped frozen, Viva Raw ships its recipes directly to its consumers.
6 lb order minimum
We've got bad news if you're considering ordering just a pound or two to try Viva Raw before committing to a larger order. You must order a minimum of 6 lbs of food, which is roughly $40, before shipping.
Raw feeding dangers
At Wag!, we are typically hesitant about recommending raw foods since these foods have a much higher risk of Salmonella and E.coli
https://wagwalking.com/condition/e-coli-infection
What pet parents say about Viva Raw dog food
"I have a GSD who is older and her tastes are changing. I just started her on Viva mixed with her previous food, to transition her and she loves it. She has even started leaving her previous food in the bowl and just eating the Viva. I recently started a subscription!"
"Been feeding my dogs raw for about 20 years never seen any meat like this. It is so superior to all the others."
Read more reviews on Viva Raw.
Viva Raw dog food history
Viva Raw arose in the 2000s amid the pandemic through a grassroots project founded by Jenn Wu and Zach Ao. These two corporate professionals set out to create better quality raw food for their hound, Karoo.
After perfecting the recipes, this couple from Hillsborough, NC, began advertising their homemade raw food on Facebook and hand-delivering it throughout the community. Customers were impressed, and soon, they acquired a USDA-inspected facility in North Carolina, where they moved their operations.
Viva Raw now ships its foods all over the US and has even implemented a referral program and subscription services.
Viva Raw dog food recalls
Viva Raw dog food was recalled twice in 2024. The first recall occurred at the end of January and involved four of their duck recipes and affected both dog and cat recipes. This recall was due to an FDA investigation after a customer filed a complaint about the food they received. Testing revealed that a select lot of these foods contained Salmonella and Listeria monocytogenes, which can cause illness in both humans and animals.
Listeria was also the culprit for the July 2024 recall when the FDA once again tested batches of Viva Raw and found that at least one lot of all their turkey recipes (for cats and dogs) had been contaminated.
Viva Raw claims to have stringent quality control. According to their website, the company tests each batch for E. Coli, Listeria, and Salmonella. Before the products are distributed, "multiple samples are collected from each batch to ensure that we have a high statistical confidence in our results." We are unsure if these measures have been implemented since the recalls or if the facility's quality control procedures failed to catch the contaminated batches before they reached consumers.
Images sourced from Viva Raw. Copyright Viva Raw.
FAQ
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