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The short answer: Tie at A (93/100) on the treats rubric. Both are single-ingredient freeze-dried treats with named whole beef as the core ingredient. The structural difference is which part of the beef each uses: Wellness Bowl Boosters Bare Beef uses whole beef muscle meat (45% protein, 35% fat); Vital Essentials Beef Liver uses pure beef liver organ meat. Liver is denser in vitamin A, B12, folate, and iron; muscle meat is denser in amino acid completeness and total protein. Bowl Boosters adds three natural antioxidant preservatives; Vital Essentials uses no preservatives at all. Different roles in a feeding plan.

The scores

Wellness Bowl Boosters Bare Beef Single-Ingredient Freeze-Dried Beef Topper: A (93/100) — Beef, Mixed Tocopherols, Rosemary Extract, Green Tea Extract.

Vital Essentials Freeze-Dried Beef Liver Freeze-Dried Beef Liver Treats: A (93/100) — Beef Liver.

How the ingredients compare

The top-five ingredients reveal the formulation split between these two products:

Bowl Boosters Bare Beef: Beef, Mixed Tocopherols, Rosemary Extract, Green Tea Extract

Vital Essentials Beef Liver: Beef Liver

Both products earn effectively the same v15 score, but the ingredient lineups tell different stories about how they got there — that is where the actual pick decision lives.

Where Bowl Boosters Bare Beef pulls ahead

Whole-beef muscle meat: Bowl Boosters Bare Beef is whole beef muscle — the protein source most closely matched to amino acid completeness for muscle maintenance and recovery. Liver is denser in micronutrients but lower in total complete-amino-acid protein. Shop on Amazon →

Three-layer antioxidant preservation: Mixed tocopherols, rosemary extract, and green tea extract provide redundant fat-oxidation protection — extending shelf life without resorting to BHA, BHT, or ethoxyquin. Vital Essentials skips added preservatives, accepting shorter shelf-life as a trade-off.

Lower vitamin A risk: Beef liver is concentrated in preformed vitamin A (retinol). Heavy daily liver feeding can theoretically push vitamin A intake into hypervitaminosis A territory in very small dogs over long periods. Muscle-meat treats like Bowl Boosters carry no upper-limit vitamin A risk — safer for daily high-volume use as a training treat.

Where Vital Essentials Beef Liver holds its own

Organ-meat micronutrient density: Vital Essentials Beef Liver delivers vitamin A (as preformed retinol), B12, folate, iron, and copper in concentrations that muscle meat cannot match. For dogs recovering from illness or with specific micronutrient gaps (especially B12 absorption issues), liver-based treats deliver more nutritional punch per bite. Shop on Amazon →

No preservatives at all: Pure beef liver with nothing added. For the cleanest possible ingredient label — especially for owners managing dogs with multiple sensitivities — this is the structurally simpler option.

Established single-ingredient FD category leader: Vital Essentials has been making single-ingredient freeze-dried treats for over two decades. Bowl Boosters Bare Beef is Wellness’s newer entry into this category. For owners who weigh category-specialist heritage, Vital Essentials has the longer track record.

The bottom line

Bowl Boosters Bare Beef and Vital Essentials Beef Liver both earn A/93 on the treats rubric and represent the cleanest possible single-ingredient freeze-dried treat formulations. Pick on which beef part fits your use case: whole muscle meat for daily high-volume training treats and meal toppers (Bowl Boosters), or concentrated organ meat for micronutrient density and short-duration training-treat sessions (Vital Essentials Beef Liver). For owners feeding both formats rotationally, the combination delivers broader nutritional coverage than either alone.