The scores
Fancy Feast: C (58/100)
9Lives: D (38/100)
A 20-point gap across the D/C boundary. Fancy Feast’s wet-pate reformulation (beef now at #1 instead of beef broth) lifted it into the average tier, while 9Lives’ dry corn-first formula stayed put. Both are budget supermarket brands, but they now score in fundamentally different tiers.
How the ingredients compare
Here are the key ingredients side by side:
Fancy Feast: Corn, Soybean Meal, Poultry By-Product Meal, Corn Gluten Meal, Beef Tallow, Wheat Flour, Artificial Flavors, Artificial Colors (Yellow 5, Red 40, Blue 2)
9Lives: Corn Gluten Meal, Ground Yellow Corn, Poultry By-Product Meal, Soybean Meal, Beef Tallow (preserved with BHA), Animal Digest, Phosphoric Acid, Added Color (Red 40, Yellow 5, Blue 2)
Neither food lists a named whole meat anywhere near the top. Both lead with corn products, both use poultry by-product meal instead of named poultry, and both add artificial colors that serve zero nutritional purpose. The differences are in degree, not in kind — 9Lives leans even harder into the cheapest possible formulation.
Where Fancy Feast pulls ahead
First ingredient is a grain, not a protein isolate. Fancy Feast starts with corn — not great, but at least it’s a whole grain. 9Lives leads with corn gluten meal, a concentrated plant protein isolate used to inflate the protein percentage on the label without providing the animal-source amino acids cats actually need as obligate carnivores. Starting with corn gluten meal is a bigger red flag than starting with whole corn.
No BHA preservative. Fancy Feast uses beef tallow without BHA. 9Lives explicitly preserves its beef tallow with BHA (butylated hydroxyanisole), a chemical preservative that the FDA’s National Toxicology Program has identified as “reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen.” While the amounts in pet food are small, many pet owners prefer to avoid it entirely — and better cat foods manage preservation without it.
No generic “animal digest.” 9Lives includes “animal digest” — a vaguely sourced flavor enhancer that could come from virtually any animal. Fancy Feast uses artificial flavors instead, which isn’t ideal either, but at least doesn’t raise the same sourcing transparency concerns. Shop on Amazon →
Where 9Lives holds its own
Price. 9Lives is typically the cheapest cat food on the shelf, often undercutting Fancy Feast by a meaningful margin per pound. If budget is the absolute primary constraint, 9Lives delivers calories at the lowest possible cost. That’s the beginning and end of its advantage.
No wheat flour. Fancy Feast includes wheat flour, another filler ingredient that adds bulk without meaningful nutrition for cats. 9Lives skips this particular filler — though it compensates with corn gluten meal in the #1 spot, which is arguably worse. Shop on Amazon →
The bottom line
Fancy Feast wins this comparison by 6 points, but “wins” is generous. Both foods earn D grades, both rely on corn and by-product meals, and both add artificial colors your cat doesn’t need. The gap reflects 9Lives’ even heavier reliance on the cheapest possible ingredients — corn gluten meal first, BHA preservation, and generic animal digest.
If you’re currently feeding either of these, the most impactful change isn’t switching from one to the other — it’s upgrading past both. A B-grade cat food like Wellness (B/80), Blue Buffalo (B/76), or Taste of the Wild (B/76) costs more per bag but delivers a genuine quality jump with named meats, no artificial colors, and no BHA.
Read our full reviews of Fancy Feast and 9Lives for the complete ingredient breakdowns.