The scores
Alpo Prime Cuts Savory Beef Flavor: D (36/100) — Ground yellow corn first, meat and bone meal second, soybean meal third. Beef fat preserved with mixed tocopherols (no BHA/BHT). Three artificial colors (Red 40, Yellow 5, Blue 2). Reformulation swapped synthetic preservatives for natural ones.
Pedigree Adult Complete Nutrition Roasted Chicken: D (36/100) — Ground whole corn first, meat and bone meal second, soybean meal third. Animal fat preserved with BHA (paired with citric acid as co-preservative) — no BHT. Artificial colors further down the ingredient list.
How the ingredients compare
Alpo: Ground Yellow Corn, Meat and Bone Meal, Soybean Meal, Beef Fat (Mixed Tocopherols), Corn Gluten Meal
Pedigree: Ground Whole Grain Corn, Meat and Bone Meal, Soybean Meal, Animal Fat (BHA + Citric Acid), Corn Gluten Meal
The first three ingredients are functionally identical: corn, meat and bone meal, soybean meal. Corn gluten meal appears at #5 for both, and animal fat fills #4. These are the same cost-optimization playbook from two different multinational conglomerates — Alpo by Nestlé/Purina, Pedigree by Mars. The key remaining difference is preservation: Alpo’s recent reformulation uses mixed tocopherols (vitamin E), while Pedigree still relies on BHA (with citric acid as a co-preservative).
Where Pedigree pulls ahead
Named species protein: Some Pedigree formulas identify the animal source more specifically than Alpo's generic "meat and bone meal." While neither brand leads with quality protein, Pedigree's labeling provides marginally more transparency about what's in the bag.
Wider availability: Pedigree is one of the most widely distributed dog foods globally — available at every grocery store, gas station, and dollar store. Alpo has wide distribution too, but Pedigree's retail footprint is larger. Shop on Amazon →
Where Alpo holds its own
Chicken by-product meal: At position #6, Alpo includes chicken by-product meal. It's a low-quality ingredient, but it at least names a species. Shop on Amazon →
The bottom line
Pedigree and Alpo both score D/36 — a tie in the D tier. Debating which D-grade food is marginally less bad misses the point entirely. Both are corn-based formulas with generic rendered proteins and zero named whole meats. Alpo avoids BHA/BHT preservatives and the full artificial-color quartet; Pedigree still uses BHA (with citric acid). The money you’d spend on either would be dramatically better invested in Iams (C/58) or Purina ONE (C/58) — both cost only slightly more and deliver a fundamentally different quality of nutrition. If your dog is eating either of these foods, upgrading to any C-grade brand is the single most impactful change you can make.
Corrected 2026-10-19: we removed claims we could not support; we corrected factual errors, and grades and score comparisons that did not match our current scores.