Meet Our Dog House – Maggie & Georgia (right)
Our dog house is made up of Georgia (right), my pretty, anxious black girl and our resident picky eater, and Maggie (Margret Thatcher), my confident, super chatty grey who has opinions on everything and will inhale almost anything you put in front of her.
I’ve had my girls for four years now, and I spend a lot of time researching dog food. It’s a horrifying rabbit hole once you realise how much rubbish gets wrapped up in marketing and sold as healthy. My girls eat a premium grain-free kibble mixed with human-grade beef mince, salmon from the fish markets, sardines and more. After doing the Lyka Review I am now also a customer. However, I have repeatedly seen the Eureka ads doing the rounds for a while, so we thought it was time to give this Aussie brand the pup taste test.
Eureka: Australian, Wild-Sourced, No Nasties
Eureka Pet Co started life in early 2022 on a small acreage in the Byron Bay hinterland, in the quiet hamlet of Eureka itself (yes, it’s a real place, and yes, it’s as pretty as it sounds). Co-founder Tara Medina swapped strategy consulting for dog food. Sounds like a wild pivot, but once you see what they’re doing, it makes complete sense.
The philosophy is refreshingly simple: 90% meat, organs and bone, 10% fruit, veg and seeds, and 0% anything else. No fillers, no rice, no corn, no soy, nothing artificial. Eureka is 100% Australian owned, with proteins drawn from sustainably harvested wild kangaroo, venison and boar, plus free-range chicken and grass-fed lamb. When I opened the Wild Boar & Free Range Chicken pouch, it smelled like an actual roast dinner, not a pet product. And No, I didn’t taste test myself.
The Sustainability Creds: Solar Ovens and Carbon Neutral
Being a bit of a sustainability nut. We at DA love to prioritise founders doing great things. Eureka air-dries everything at 68 degrees in solar-powered ovens, using a fraction of the energy of traditional cooking or freeze-drying. Did you know that dried kibble uses heats of up to 200 degrees which lowers the nutritional content. With Eureka the whole operation is certified carbon neutral through NOCO2, Australia’s longest-running carbon abatement scheme. The wild game is ethically harvested too, which cleverly turns a real environmental problem (feral deer and boar wreaking havoc on native habitat) into dinner, rather than shipping in mystery protein from who knows where. I care about where my dollars go and the impact they have, so this makes me feel good about what’s landing in the bowl. Many of the big pet food companies are US based, so not only is that a big carbon footprint, but you have to say how fresh is it. I am a believe in local is better.
The Range & Trying It Out: The Taste Tester Pack
The website is refreshingly low fuss. No quiz, quota, no algorithm deciding my dogs’ destiny. I went straight for the tester pack, $19.99 which gives Maggie and Georgia a taste of all seven of their recipes. The pack includes:
- Single Protein Wild Kangaroo (E75): hypoallergenic, novel protein, ideal for dogs reacting to chicken or beef
- Grass-Fed Lamb & Wild Caught Sardine (E75): three omega-3 sources for coat, joints and cognitive support
- Free Range Turkey & Duck (E75): dual novel protein, lean and highly digestible
- Wild Boar & Free Range Chicken (E90): novel protein pairing, high protein
- Wild Venison & Grass Fed Lamb (E90): red meat blend, rich in iron and B vitamins
- Wild Kangaroo & Grass Fed Lamb (E90): lean, novel protein pairing
- Single Protein Chicken (E90): single protein, straightforward option for dogs without sensitivities
So i thought it would be great fun to line them all up on the floor one by one and see which ones they went for. Each sample bag is only 20g which for two pups isn’t enough to do the first fly by ‘eat’ test, and then do another second taste test between the final two! Also restraining two hounds who can smell great food was hilarious. See below for the results.
The Unboxing
Compared to the freezer-clearing operation Lyka required, this was a breeze. No ice packs to offload on the in-laws, no frantic call to a neighbour with spare freezer space which was what happened with my first Lyka order! The bag I have to trial is 2.25kg.
The Cost – Eureka Dog Food
I give their online calculator a whir. It asks my pups size, recipe, body shape (no fat shaming here), activity level and feeding level ie 100% Eureka (no, sorry, I have a mortgage to pay), half feed or topper (15% Eureka). It’s really helpful to work out the best way of ordering.
Premium dog food generally runs somewhere between $100 and $150 a month depending on size and appetite, and with two 30kg-plus greyhounds, we sit at the pointy end of that. I do the maths on what I spend on premium kibble, beef mince, salmon and sardines each month and pretend not to remember the number! Eureka is on the upper end of the scale especially when I can buy a kilo of 5 star human grade beef mince for around $25 a kilo. However, that involves fridge space, time to shop for fresh produce. Eureka offers all the vitamins and is packaged far more conveniently, and with far less mess.
For our test test we have a 2.25kg bag of Single Protein Wild Kangaroo as I know Roo is one of their favourites and I can’t stand buying it raw as the smell is so strong. The Eureka bag works out to be $122.85 or $54 a kilo. If I had ordered the largest bag (which is 6.75kg), then its $46.20 a kilo. It’s a bit frustrating as you can’t search for price or value on the site. There are lots of pack sizes and the bigger you go the better the per kilo price. Turkey & Duck and Grass Fed Lamb & Wild Caught Sardine are the best value in the large-bag format, both listed from $124.00 which works out to be $42 a kilo for a 6.75kg bag, compared with Single Protein Wild Kangaroo at $136.50. They do offer ‘Bundle Packs’ of 3 x 2.25kg (so a total of 6.75kg of food) which works out around $41 per kilo. Keep an eye out for the option of ‘90%’ protein or ‘75%’ protein to lower the cost if that is a factor.
The Taste Test: Noses at the ready
Dinner in our house can be a production. Georgia won’t come down from the study, or she comes down and then bolts at a noise outside. Maggie, meanwhile, has never met a meal she didn’t love at first sight. So I ran the classic blind test line them up in a row and see who goes to what. With two hounds I am not sure if proximity or taste was the winner. So I conducted a second hands on test: a recipe in each fist, arms out, no favourites. Kangaroo got a polite sniff and a “we’ll see.” Venison did marginally better. But the second the Wild Boar hit the mark. No hesitation, no wandering off to “think about it,” just tails up. Boar was the unanimous winner in the pack taste test. Here are the results:
Wild Boar & Free Range Chicken: The showstopper. Meaty, slightly gamey, and the kind of smell that makes both dogs materialise from separate rooms, as if I’ve rung a dinner bell only they can hear.
Wild Venison & Grass Fed Lamb: Leaner and milder. Still a solid contender, but it was always going to struggle for attention next to the boar.
Wild Kangaroo & Grass Fed Lamb: I’ve served roo-based foods that made me hold my breath. This one is far more restrained on the nose, and still ticks the lean, highly digestible box that makes kangaroo popular for sensitive tummies.
The Competition
I’ve now tried Eureka alongside the category’s other heavy hitters, none of them are budget options, and they’re all playing very different games.
ZIWI Peak, the New Zealand air-dried giant, runs about 96% meat, organs and bone, with added green-lipped mussel for joint support. Its nutritional profile is denser than Eureka’s, at roughly 42.5% protein and 34% fat versus Eureka’s 37% and 25%, But it’s farmed protein rather than wild, and it costs noticeably more per kilo.
K9 Natural sits at a similar protein level but is freeze-dried rather than air-dried, which some dogs find more palatable and others find too intense.
Lyka, the fresh-food subscription I reviewed last time, is human grade, gently cooked and delivered frozen, and it runs higher in protein on a dry-matter basis. But it needs freezer space, overnight thawing and a regular delivery schedule to manage.
I am a dog mum that cares a lot not just about what they eat, but how my purchasing decisions improve the planet. It’s easily the most ethically distinct option on the shelf: wild game proteins that transition an environmental issue into dinner, solar dried, carbon-neutral certified, shelf stable and zero fuss.
Two Weeks Later
So what have I noticed? First, it’s wonderfully convenient. No soaking, no defrosting, no standing over a pan where Georgia is my restaurant critic. I scoop it in the bowl and I am done. It keeps for weeks once opened. The girls have clean bowls every time, and the Roo disappears fast. Their coats where glossy to start with so with such a small bag trial I can’t really comment on the long term experience. However, there’s been no tummy upset at all. With a small bag and two dog experience, we didn’t have enough food to migrate them fully onto the diet to really see how things like poo, tummy issues long term improve. What I can say is they LOVED eating it and there where no downsides.
The DA Verdict
What are we ADDICTED to?
Eureka isn’t the cheapest bag on the shelf, and for two big dogs I wouldn’t feed it as a full meal every day. But as a topper and treat, it’s easy to justify. It doesn’t take up room in my freezer, I love its Australian, wild sourced, solar dried and convenient, and my pups made their verdict clear without any encouragement from me. They freakin’ love it!
What Do We Need to Be More ADDICTED?
Bigger sample packs, the tiny tastes didn’t go far when my two dogs are doing side-eye comparisons at once. And a more wallet-friendly option for big dogs with 10KG+ ranges, perhaps bigger discounts for annual commitment. We would love to try the treats and others in the range.
Eureka Pet Co. See eurekapet.co for details on the sample pack and full range.