What’s in it
The top ingredients, in order: Chicken, Chicken Meal, Brewers Rice, Chicken By-Product Meal, Animal Fat Preserved With Mixed-Tocopherols, Pea Starch, Barley, Corn Protein Meal, Liver Flavor, Brewers Dried Yeast, Natural And Artificial Flavors, Cassava Root Flour, Turkey By-Product Meal, Phosphoric Acid, Calcium Carbonate, Potassium Chloride, Choline Chloride, Salt, Taurine, L-Ascorbyl-2-Polyphosphate (Vitamin C), Yellow 5, Citric Acid, Yellow 6, Red 40, Blue 2, BHA (a Preservative), BHT (a Preservative). Each Friskies Party Mix treat is approximately 2 kcal. The product carries the AAFCO “intermittent or supplemental feeding only” statement.
Friskies is a Purina-owned mass-market cat food and treat brand, distributed at virtually every grocery and drug store in the US. Party Mix is their training-sized crunchy treat line, positioned on shelf availability and price. The D/42 score is representative of mainstream biscuit cat treats at this price tier — similar to Temptations Classic Chicken (D/38), which has an almost-identical additive profile.
The good stuff
Whole chicken as the first ingredient is the main positive. Chicken meal at position two is a concentrated protein source (reasonable for a treat), and the ingredient panel is meat-forward for the first two lines. Our rubric awards +12 for a named whole-muscle meat first. Shop on Amazon →
Taurine is supplemented in the panel. Cats are obligate carnivores and require dietary taurine for cardiac function and retinal health; most quality cat treats include taurine, and Friskies does so here.
L-Ascorbyl-2-Polyphosphate (stabilized vitamin C) is included as a natural antioxidant supplementation. This is a meaningful choice of the more-shelf-stable vitamin C form rather than plain ascorbic acid.
2 kcal per treat is low calorie density, which for a cat biscuit category is normal but not remarkable. A 10-pound cat’s 25-kcal daily treat budget fits 12 Party Mix treats before crossing the 10% ceiling.
Mixed tocopherols preserve the animal fat, which is the natural-preservation approach. This would be a rubric positive on its own — unfortunately it’s paired with BHA and BHT elsewhere in the panel, which cancels out.
The not-so-good stuff
This is where the rubric math gets ugly. Friskies Party Mix stacks multiple deductions that collectively drop the score from a potential B-tier start (chicken first +12) down to D/42:
BHA (butylated hydroxyanisole): −10. Synthetic antioxidant preservative. The EU EFSA classifies BHA as a potential endocrine disruptor at high exposures; the US FDA permits it in pet food below specified concentration limits but some veterinary sources recommend avoidance given the availability of natural alternatives. Any quality premium treat avoids BHA entirely.
BHT (butylated hydroxytoluene): −10. Companion synthetic antioxidant, usually paired with BHA. Same rubric deduction and same rationale as above.
Yellow 5: −6. Artificial color. Has no functional purpose other than cosmetic appearance of the treat — cats are dichromatic and don’t perceive the color variety the way humans do. Some research suggests artificial colors correlate with hyperactivity and behavioral issues in a small percentage of pets.
Yellow 6: −6. Second artificial color stacked with Yellow 5.
Red 40: −6. Third artificial color. Red 40 is one of the most-studied artificial colors and carries regulatory scrutiny in multiple jurisdictions.
Blue 2: −6. Fourth artificial color. At this point the panel has stacked 24 points of artificial-color deductions alone — this is the single biggest category of Friskies-specific rubric penalty.
Chicken By-Product Meal: −3. Unspecified chicken parts (typically organ meats, feet, heads, and necks). Not inherently unhealthy — in fact organ meats are nutritionally dense — but the “by-product meal” labeling makes sourcing and quality opaque. Premium treats either disclose organs specifically (beef liver, chicken heart) or avoid unspecified by-products.
Artificial flavors: −4. “Natural And Artificial Flavors” at position eleven indicates synthetic flavor compounds. Premium treats use natural-only flavoring or meat-derived palatability.
Brewers rice at position three (grain in top 3 of non-biscuit? −6. Biscuit class? −3). Friskies is classified as biscuit, so the deduction is −3. Brewers rice is a processed rice fragment byproduct, not whole rice.
Corn protein meal at position eight. Plant-protein isolate used to boost crude protein percentage without adding whole-meat content. Not a bonus, not a heavy penalty, but part of the overall filler load.
There are no active FDA recalls or enforcement actions on Friskies Party Mix product line as of this review’s verification date.
How it compares
Friskies Party Mix D/42 sits in the bottom tier of cat treats, alongside Temptations Classic Chicken (D/38). The two products are effectively interchangeable from a rubric standpoint — Temptations leads with chicken by-product meal (worse first ingredient) and is −4 lower; Friskies leads with whole chicken (better first ingredient) so ekes out D/42. Both stack BHA, BHT, and multiple artificial colors; the difference is noise-level.
Against A-tier alternatives, the gap is large. PureBites Freeze-Dried Chicken (A/95) is 53 points above Friskies at a similar per-day cost. Inaba Churu Tuna (A/90) is 48 points above. Tiki Cat Stix Tuna (A/90) is 48 points above. Any of these three premium alternatives provides objectively better ingredient quality, lower additive load, and equivalent palatability for the vast majority of cats.
Against the dental-chew category, Greenies Feline Original (C/61) is 19 points above Friskies, and adds VOHC-verified dental function that Friskies doesn’t claim.
The specific case where Friskies might make sense: extremely cost-constrained households where premium alternatives are unaffordable, AND cats that simply won’t accept any alternative texture. In those cases, Friskies is still far better nutrition than no treat at all. But for most households with access to mainstream online retailers, upgrading to a B-tier or A-tier alternative is within reach and improves the rubric score dramatically.
The bottom line
Friskies Party Mix Original Crunch earns a D grade (42/100) on KibbleIQ’s treats rubric. The chicken-first ingredient order is the one structural positive; everything else is a rubric deduction. Four artificial colors, BHA, BHT, chicken by-product meal, and grain fillers collectively drag this into D-tier. If your cat will accept alternatives, we recommend switching to PureBites Freeze-Dried Chicken (A/95), Inaba Churu (A/90), or Tiki Cat Stix (A/90) — all three are cleaner panels at comparable per-day cost. If Friskies is the only option, stay well under the 10%-of-daily-calories ceiling (12 treats maximum for a 10-pound cat) and consider rotation with a premium alternative. See our Treats Rubric methodology for the full scoring logic. Shop a safer alternative on Amazon →