aldi dog food roll review australia

By Isabella Storyclaire

last updated September 16, 2024

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ALDI Julius Gold Dog Food Review

ALDI are great for being cheap, but cheap rarely equals quality. They label their Julius Gold home brand (ok, technically a phantom brand) as premium, when the truth is that word is a meaningless marketing word.

In our ALDI Julius Gold dog food review (also applicable to the Puppy & Lite formulas) well find out what the ingredients really say about this dog food.

Julius Gold dog food review

What the marketing says

Allegedly the Julius Gold dog food is formulated by an animal nutritionist. Not a dog nutritionist, just an animal nutritionist.

Seeing as pictures say a thousand words, below is an excerpt from an ALDI magazine which highly praises their glorified home brand dog food. After all, theyre not going to slate it, are they:

Lets play a game! Take a look at the packaging in the image above. The main ingredient in this dog food is shown graphically, but can you guess what it is?

Having read the marketing spiel above it seems ALDI Julius Gold dog food is pretty good, right? After all, Dr Cameron Sell PhD seems highly qualified so must have a thorough understanding about the nutritional requirements of dogs?

Well, it turns out Cameron Sell is an owner of a company called Premier Pet Foods (aka The Great Australian Petfood Company), so we can only assume he benefits lucratively from making this dog food for ALDI.

They also manufacture some of the most poorly rated dog foods on this website Boomer, True Blue, and Winning Edge, although their more premium BIOPet brand is arguably the best of that bunch.

What the ingredients really say

Ill focus on Julius Adult for this review, but will mention the Puppy and Lite recipes as a tragic anecdote at the end.

A natural canine diet is meat, so its a good start to find meat as the main ingredient. Sadly its cheap meat churned up with by-products (offal, skin, cysts, tumours, and who knows what else). Its weighed before cooking so will become less significant in the finished product, so in all likelihood isnt the main ingredient in this food.

Did you guess earlier that meat (or chicken) was the main ingredient in ALDI Julius Gold? If so, read on

When it comes to non-nutritious grains, wheat is arguably the worst. Its a cause of canine atopic dermatitis and very likely the reason your dog may scratch a lot on a food such as this. Wheat is listed second on the ingredients list (or at least a combination of wheat and/or sorghum).

Sorghum isnt that great either, being starchy and less digestible than rice grains. Wheat and sorghum are very cheap, which is why theyre in this food.

Next up we find the real truth about the main ingredient in this dog food. The third listed ingredient is wheat bran

Hold on a minute, wasnt wheat our 2nd ingredient as well?

What we have here is a cunning marketing trick called splitting. Ingredients are listed in order of percentage, so splitting a cheap ingredient (such as wheat) into two parts makes the meat appear as the main ingredient when its not.

Youre being duped, and the reality is wheat is the main ingredient. Its one of the cheapest, most allergenic grains available, and given this dog food was formulated by an animal nutritionist you would have to wonder why they think wheat is good for an essentially carnivorous animal.

Vegetable protein is the fourth ingredient, possibly in the same quantity as the first three ingredients (making it one part meat, two parts grain, and one part vegetable). This is likely added to ramp up the protein from a cheaper and less digestible source than meat.

Tallow is a by-product of meat rendering, being the fatty residue from cooking up meat in a big vat. This accounts for the fat content in the food and isnt the best or healthiest.

Ill give them credit for linseeds and/or linseed oil (otherwise known as flaxseed). Where all other ingredients fail, this will give your dog some nutritional benefit and go some way to provide necessary omega fatty acids for health and coat.

Some vitamins and minerals are added too, because its a minimum requirement, but to me its on par with feeding your kids McDonalds every day and slipping in some budget multivitamin.

A summary (and better recommendations)

To summarise our ALDI Julius Gold dog food review we would have to recommend you pass on this.

Your dog may eat it, and in the short term they may even appear to enjoy it, but the excessive wheat in this product is just one reason why your dog may develop poor health in years to come.

If ALDI is your store of choice then opt for ALDI Natural Elements which is much better, or refer to our best rated list.

Julius Gold Puppy

Julius Puppy is formulated in the same way as Adult, but appears to have a more significant amount of meat & meat by-products, and likely more vegetable protein. That doesnt mean I recommend feeding it to a dog in their early crucial stages of life.

Julius Gold Lite

If your dogs overweight then the best thing you can do is feed him a decent meat-based diet. What theyve done here is the opposite, theyve practically removed the meat altogether and stuffed it to the brim with cheap grains. Your dog will have to eat much more to get the nutrients he needs, filling his belly with worthless crap. How will that help?

Ingredients

Ingredients of ALDI Julius Gold dog food:

Meat and Meat By-Products (from Chicken and Beef), Wholegrain Cereals (Wheat and/or Sorghum), Wheat Bran, Vegetable Protein, Tallow, Whole Linseeds and/or Linseed Oil, Beet Pulp, Salt, Prebiotic, Mixed Tocopherols (Vitamin E), Rosemary Plant Extract, Vitamins (A, D, E, K, B1, B2, B6, B12, Niacin, Folic Acid, Biotin, Choline, Pantothenic Acid), Minerals (Iron, Zinc, Copper, Manganese, Selenium, Iodine, Cobalt), Lutein, Garlic, Kelp.

Guaranteed analysis

Guaranteed analysis of ALDI Julius Gold dog food:

Protein	14.5%
Fat	9.5%
Crude Fibre	?
Carbohydrates *	Estimated 58%

* May be estimated. Read how to calculate carbohydrates in a pet food.

ALDI Julius Gold dog food recalls

Australia has a voluntary recall system which means public recalls rarely occur. We note, however, that numerous consumers have found their dogs to have adverse reactions to the Julius Gold dog food products.

3.2Total Score

Cheap meat and a double whammy of Wheat and Wheat doesn't come across as a premium food for dogs

CONS

Wheat is a problematic grain for dog health
Wheat bran is also a problematic grain for dog health
Cheap and unhealthy ingredients

All Dog Food Reviews in Australia

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All Dog Food Reviews in Australia

Below is a list of dog food reviews for brands available in Australia (including imported brands).

All reviews have been written by a qualified pet nutritionist in the hope they offer insight into what youre actually feeding your dog. Pet food marketing is very clever, so hopefully these reviews will offer you a clearer truth so you can make a more informed decision.

Feedback is very welcome. These reviews are designed to better the health of our dogs, so any informed opinions or criticism is encouraged.

If you want to know my thoughts on how we should feed our dogs, spare 10 minutes to read my short guide How To Feed A Dog!

More information about how these reviews are written can be found in the About these dog food reviews section at the bottom of this page.

Take advantage of offers from Pet Circle or Lucky Pet who almost always have offers on many of the dog foods listed below.

Best-rated dog food reviews

These are our current list of best-rated dog food reviews. This list will change over time, so check back whenever youre stocking up. Feeding a variety of these dog foods is an excellent idea, and we encourage the feeding of fresh, raw, or raw meaty bones as part of your dogs diet.

Alternative dog food reviews

Alternative dog food reviews include made to order, air-dried, freeze-dried, rolls, or other styles which cant be classified as dry or wet commercial dog foods.

Dry dog food reviews

The amount of dry dog foods available in Australia will boggle your mind. In reality most come from the same handful of major manufacturers such as Mars, Nestle, Colgate-Palmolive, and our largest Australian pet food manufacturers Real Pet Food Co, Coprice, and Hypro.

Due to constant changes of brands and formulas in Australia it is possible for these dog food reviews to become out of date. If in doubt check the date of the review, or leave a comment if you find any to be out of date.

Puppy food reviews

For better information we have a guide to feeding puppies.

Working dog food reviews

For better information we have a guide to feeding working dogs.

About these dog food reviews

Each review is written firstly on the ingredients list and guaranteed analysis, with an explanation on what the ingredients really are and what percentage likelihood they will be (i.e. chicken may be listed first, but if this follows 4 or 5 grains then there wont be much chicken in the overall formula).

Many other factors are considered without being specifically noted. Consumer feedback will affect how the reviews are rated, especially if a dog food has numerous suspect reports of sickness or diarrhoea (which sadly happens all to often).

Many dog foods in Australia come from the same handful of manufacturers, with more being churned out every week to replace a tarnished brand. Some manufacturers have a worse track record than others, and some manufacturers have shown to have a very high standard of manufacture.

Marketing is always at play, and given the lax standards of pet food regulation in Australia its very common for a pet food manufacturer to bend the rules or use cunning tricks to deceive unsuspecting consumers.

All these factors, and others, are accounted for in these dog food reviews.

If any dog food reviews are missing feel free to contact us and well add a review.

ALDI Natural Elements Dog Food Review

I never thought Id say this, but the Natural Elements range at ALDI is actually alright. Okay, its notgreat, but its a huge improvement over their Julius range.

Our independent ALDI Natural Elements dog food review will tell you the good and the bad about this food. So, read on!

ALDI Natural Elements Review

Its important to consider the good points and bad points of this cleverly formulated food.Ill explain a number of real truths behind the ingredients, which as with most pet foods reads better than it is. Make sure you absorb both before deciding whether to feed this to your dog or not.

Lets take a look at ALDI Natural Elements Grain Free Chicken

First off, the guaranteed analysis is better than most. Protein of 28% is higher than average, as is fat at 18%. That gives an approximate 36% carbohydrates which is better than most other supermarket brands. The food is also at the cheaper end of the scale at around $12 for a 2.5kg bag that makes it somewhat affordable for those on a tight budget.

The main ingredient in Natural Elements Chicken is actuallyPoultry Meal, so its a bit dubious how much chicken there actually is. Ambiguous ingredients are often poor quality (which is a cert given the price per kilo of this food), and this could be a combination of whatever poultry is cheapest. It definitely wont be the succulent chicken breast pictured on the bag, but remnants of poultry inclusive of frames and whatever cant be sold for human consumption. This is the case with most pet foods by the way.

The second ingredient (likely of an equal quantity to the poultry meal) isPeas. Peas are a cheaper way of bulking up protein and adding fibre than meat. Its not necessarily a bad ingredient but there are concerns about excessive peas in a canine diet. This is one of the reasons we recommend rotating foods or supplementing a diet with fresh ingredients.

The third ingredient isPoultry Tallowwhich is rendered poultry by-products. Its a cheap product as its a way of recycling and selling meat waste. Its found in a lot of pet foods and will be a significant constituent of the 18% fat. On the label it says it contains rosemary extract as a natural preservative, but also antioxidants. These will be chemical antioxidants to extend shelf-life, and chemicals in a pet food are never good.

We find a trifecta of carbs Tapioca,Potato, andSweet Potato. Its probably better to have a mix, and its nice to see they havent been used excessively in the formula. Too much carbs are bad for dogs, and as said earlier this food has lower carbs than other supermarket offerings.

Gravy is more likely animal or poultry digest, a broth from rendering meats. Its a cheap ingredient which is why so many manufacturers list it ambiguously as gravy or natural flavours.

We findglucosamine andchondroitin, as well assalmon oil andcoconut oil. These will be beneficial for joint health and well-being, but likely included due to the poor quality of meat and meat fats.Taurine (an amino acid found in meats) has been added for a similar reason.

We find a range of trace fruits and veggies such as alfalfa, cranberries, and blueberries. These are good ingredients but as trace amounts theyre probably included more because they look good on the label.

So there you go, an insight into ALDI Natural Elements dog food. The review probably reads more negative than positive, but its still a better food than the likes of Julius and far too many other supermarket dog foods. If you have a tight budget then this could be a suitable option, in which case its worth supplementing with fresh meats and veggies to really offer your dog a boost on a budget.

Rated 6 out of 10 as ALDI Natural Elements dog food is a reasonable budget option. If you want a better dog food then be sure to check out our Best Rated Dog Foods list.

Where to buy ALDI Natural Elements

Unfortunately ALDI Australia dont have a delivery service, but you can use their tool to find your nearest store.

ALDI Natural Elements Ingredients

The ingredients of ALDI Natural Elements dry dog food (as of March 2021) is as follows:

Poultry Meal (Source of Chicken), Peas, Poultry Tallow (Contains Rosemary Extract, Antioxidants), Tapioca, Potato, Sweet Potato, Gravy, Vitamins & Minerals, Beet Pulp, Salmon Oil, Vegetable Oil, Chicory Root, Yucca Schidigera Extract, Coconut Oil, Alfalfa, Blueberries, Cranberries, Pumpkin, Parsley Flakes, Chondroitin Sulphate, Glucosamine, Rosemary, Taurine, Kelp Meal, Beta Carotene.