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Royal Canin launches ‘freshly-cooked’ therapeutic dog food

Mars-owned Royal Canin has moved into the therapeutic diet sector with the launch of its Fresh Veterinary Diets range for dogs with health conditions. We asked a veterinary nutritionist for her opinion.

The range comprises three varieties, including a Gastrointestinal Low Fat product for dogs requiring fat-restricted nutrition, based on turkey to improve digestibility with a gut-friendly fibre blend to support healthy and firm stool quality.

At a glance:

• Royal Canin launches three therapeutic dog food products for gastrointestinal, appetite, and allergy issues.
• Fresh therapeutic pet food market is on the rise with the US fresh dog food market valued at $1.46bn in 2025.
• Home-made diets offer customisation for complex conditions, but commercial products provide consistency and convenience.

The Appetite Stimulation product is a nutrient-dense formula to support dogs with reduced appetite, or those recovering from illness or unintentional weight loss. It contains the omega-3 fatty acids, EPA and DHA to encourage weight gain, and vitamin C, vitamin E, lutein, and taurine for immunity support.

Finally, the Selected Protein Pork variety is a single-animal-protein product formulated for those with food sensitivities and adverse food reactions, with Royal Canin citing research that indicates up to 98% of dogs with food allergies do not show allergic reactions to pork.

Mars is not the only company launching therapeutic food products for dogs.

Earlier this year, California-based JustFoodForDogs launched what it described as “the industry’s first complete line of fresh, science-backed recipes designed to address four of the most common canine health concerns”.

JustFoodForDogs’ Targeted Nutrition range is made with 100% human-grade ingredients, and include a Joint & Skin variety with glucosamine, along with Sensitive Skin, Sensitive Stomach, and Healthy Weight formulas.

The launches follow increased interest in fresh pet foods, particularly dog food products. A report commissioned by the Pet Food Institute in 2025 found that the value of the US fresh dog food market totalled around $1.46bn, with the equivalent cat food sector worth $74.5m.

Meanwhile Freshpet, a US-based manufacturer of fresh pet food, recorded full-year sales for 2025 of just over $1.1bn, up 13% year-on-year.

Home-made versus commercial pet food: The nutritionist’s view

Clinical veterinary nutritionist Dr Marie Menniti said that there are both benefits and limitations associated with freshly-cooked commercial therapeutic pet food, compared with pet owners following a personalised diet plan and cooking meals at home for their animals.

“I would recommend home cooking if there isn’t a particular commercial diet available on the market that would meet all the established clinical nutritional needs of the patient based on their disease status,” she said.

“One quite common example of this is if a patient has a suspected food allergy. Depending on the patient’s dietary and clinical history, there may be a limited number of commercial diets on the market that are suitable. If I were to formulate a homemade diet for such a patient, we would likely consider using a source of protein that is novel to that patient in the recipe.

“Another case that I often see is when one patient has multiple clinical nutritional needs. For example, if a patient that has been diagnosed with chronic kidney disease, but also has a history of pancreatitis.”

According to Menniti, commercial products on the market that are labelled for chronic kidney disease tend to be higher in fat content, while a patient with pancreatitis often requires a diet that is low in fat.

“So for those patients, I’ll typically formulate a home-prepared diet that meets the fat targets but also the clinical nutrition targets for chronic kidney disease, including restricted dietary phosphorus. By having control over the exact ingredients in the recipe, I would be able to tailor that meal very specifically for the patient.”

Enteropathy, which refers to any pathology relating to the intestine, is another common issue that can benefit from a home-made diet, said Menniti.

“I see a lot of enteropathy cases, and there can be a number of causes, with a variety of symptoms, which can make them challenging. I tend to work quite closely with the referring practice: I take a look at what diagnostics have been performed and the dietary history of the patient to try to help me figure out what my next step will be. Sometimes I’ll see patients who have tried a number of commercial diets and the owners have found that none of them have worked to reduce symptoms. We might even get to a point where a patient is just rejecting all commercial diets. In those cases, a home-made diet would be a good option.”

A further benefit of home-made diets is that ingredients and proportions can be easily adjusted if the needs of the pet change or the disease state progresses.

Commercial products offer different advantages – including reducing meal preparation time and the fact that each portion is consistent in its nutrient composition when produced by a manufacturer with good quality control.

Home-made pet food may suffer from ‘diet drift’

Conversely, home-prepared recipes may be variable in their nutrient composition because of seasonal or regional variations in raw ingredients and “diet drift”, where pet owners gradually stray from the personalised recipe’s instructions over time.

“What some clients have demonstrated is that after a few months to a few years of preparing a diet, they might they might start to feel complacent in some areas,” explained Menniti.

“So rather than measuring out each ingredient every time, they might start to think that the amount looks approximately correct based on how they prepared it the previous day. And when they’re not weighing ingredients with a gram scale every time, we can see something called diet drift, where the pet owner forgets the specific details of the original recipe. That moves away from the individualised nutritional composition that I would have built into the original recipe.”