The scores
Instinct Raw Boost Mixers Cage-Free Chicken Recipe Freeze-Dried Cat Food Topper: B (79/100) — TOPPER, not a complete diet. AAFCO supplemental label. Freeze-dried raw. Chicken with ground bone + chicken liver + turkey liver + turkey heart + non-GMO produce. Capped at B grade per Fresh Food Rubric v1.0 §16 mixer scoring rules.
Nulo FreeStyle Freeze-Dried Raw Chicken & Salmon Recipe Cat Food: B (78/100) — COMPLETE diet. AAFCO all-life-stages formulation. Freeze-dried raw. 98% chicken + salmon + chicken necks + liver + hearts. Pathogen control not publicly documented (Fresh Food Rubric §4.5 −3 deduction).
Both are B-tier freeze-dried raw products, but the B grade means different things for each. Nulo’s B reflects a pathogen-control documentation gap on an otherwise A-tier complete-diet formulation. Instinct Raw Boost Mixers’ B reflects the §16 mixer cap — it would carry a rubric cap regardless of ingredient quality because toppers are not complete-and-balanced.
How the ingredients compare
Instinct Raw Boost Mixers: Chicken (including ground chicken bone), chicken liver, pumpkinseeds, chicken heart, carrots, apples, butternut squash, turkey liver, turkey heart, ground flaxseed, montmorillonite clay, dried kelp, broccoli, mixed tocopherols, apple cider vinegar, salmon oil, rosemary extract, blueberries, dried chicory root.
Nulo FreeStyle Freeze-Dried Raw: Chicken, salmon, chicken necks, chicken liver, chicken hearts, ground flaxseed, spinach, salmon oil, cranberries, coconut oil, inulin, dried kelp, potassium chloride, salt, BC30 probiotic, taurine, proteinate-form trace minerals, full vitamin complex (vitamins E, A, D3, B-complex).
Both panels open with animal-source ingredients stacked in premium positions. Instinct Raw Boost Mixers’ panel is shorter because it is not carrying the complete vitamin-and-mineral tail that a primary diet must include. This is the most important observation: Nulo’s longer supplement list is a feature, not a flaw — it’s what makes Nulo a complete-and-balanced standalone food. Instinct’s shorter panel is why it cannot be fed as a sole diet: the vitamins, minerals, and taurine your cat needs on a daily basis are not fully present in mixer-appropriate ratios.
Where Nulo FreeStyle FD Raw pulls ahead (as a primary diet)
Complete-and-balanced all-life-stages AAFCO substantiation. Can be fed as a sole diet to kittens, adults, and pregnant/lactating queens (with vet guidance for the latter). This is the baseline requirement for a primary cat food and Nulo meets it.
Complete vitamin and mineral profile. Nulo includes supplemental taurine, proteinate-form trace minerals (zinc, iron, copper, manganese), and the full vitamin complex (A, D3, E, B-complex). This is what makes the product formulated rather than supplemental.
BC30 probiotic in a primary-diet matrix. Cats feeding Nulo as their sole diet get the probiotic dose daily. Cats using Instinct Raw Boost Mixers as a topper get organ-meat nutrition but the probiotic layer of their total diet depends on what the primary food includes. Shop on Amazon →
Where Instinct Raw Boost Mixers holds its own (as a topper)
Budget-friendly fresh/raw exposure. A topper lets owners add fresh/raw nutrition to a complete-and-balanced base diet without the per-day cost of full freeze-dried raw feeding. For a 10-lb cat, Instinct Raw Boost Mixers as a topper on a premium kibble base might run $1-2 per day total; Nulo as a primary diet runs $5-8 per day. Over a year, that’s a $1,500-2,000 difference.
Palatability booster for picky cats. Cats that turn their nose up at a premium kibble or canned-wet base often respond to the aroma layer a crumbled freeze-dried topper adds. Mixers is specifically formulated for this role — the multi-protein organ stack is highly palatable.
Whole-food produce inclusions. The pumpkinseeds, carrots, apples, butternut squash, broccoli, and blueberries in Instinct Raw Boost Mixers are whole-food rather than fractionated ingredients. This is cleaner than many primary-diet fresh-format formulations.
Can layer on any primary diet. Use it over premium dry (Wellness CORE A/90, Orijen Cat A/91), canned-wet (Tiki Cat After Dark A/90), or cooked-fresh (Smalls A/90). This flexibility is structural — a complete-diet freeze-dried raw product is more of an all-or-nothing format choice. Shop on Amazon →
The bottom line
These two products answer different questions and should not be chosen against each other directly. If you want a complete-and-balanced freeze-dried raw primary diet, compare Nulo FreeStyle FD Raw (B/78) against Stella & Chewy’s Freeze-Dried Raw Cat (A/90) and Primal Freeze-Dried Cat (A/90) — Stella & Chewy’s wins on documented HPP pathogen control. If you want to add fresh/raw nutrition as a topper to a premium complete base diet, Instinct Raw Boost Mixers (B/79) is the strongest option in our topper catalog. What you should NOT do is feed Instinct Raw Boost Mixers as a primary cat food — the AAFCO supplemental label means the product is not formulated to meet your cat’s full nutritional needs on its own.
Compare Instinct Raw Boost Mixers & Nulo Freeze-Dried →