The week before last weekend, I saw a new cat food, Cachet Wild Roots, in the Aldi brochure. At first glance, it looked very promising, as it seemed as if the discounter maybe plans to serve customers who make higher demands on the nutrition of their cats in the future. The summary in brief: Nice try, but still much improvement neccessary.
Flavours
There are 85-gram cans and 85-gram pouches from Cachet Wild Roots.
85-gram cans
with chicken and salmon
with turkey
with cod, saithe and salmon
with beef and game
The pouches are available in two packs of 12, one in „Variety from the water“ and the other in the land animal mix „Variety from nature“. The latter consists of 3x poultry, beef & chicken hearts, 3x poultry, deer & liver, 3x poultry, veal & lamb and 3x chicken, duck & beef.
Cans are produced in Germany (Petcura GmbH, business number: DE 03454000213). The pouches come from Switzerland and are produced by Herbert Ospelt Anstalt under the business number CH 22679. Herbert Ospelt Anstalt also produces IAMS and Schmusy.
I like the composition of the cans better than that of the pouches. We have tested the flavour „with turkey“, which will also be the subject of this test report. But I’m putting the compositions of the nature pouches and the other flavours into this report so that you can get an impression of yourself. Unfortunately, I forgot to photograph the fish pouches.
Composition of the cans with turkey
70% meat and animal by-products (20% turkey livers, 20% turkey heart, 10% turkey necks, 10% separated turkey meat, 10% turkey stomachs), 26.6% fresh water, minerals, vegetable by-products (u. a. 0.3% inulin), 0.3% flax seeds, oils and fats, 0.1% spirulina, 0.02% Beta-1,3/1,6-glucan (from the cell wall of Baker’s yeast)
Nutritional additives/kg: 1299 mg taurine, 78 mg vitamin E, 23 mg zinc from zinc sulphate, monohydrate, 2.2 mg manganese from Mangan-(ii)-sulfat, monohydrate, 0.4 mg of iodine from calcium iodate, anhydrous.
Technological additives/kg: 301 mg bentonite
Note: Without cassia gum. * without the addition of gluten-containing grains.
Analytical constituents of Cachet Wild Roots with turkey
13% crude protein, 5% crude fat, 2% crude ash, 0.5% crude fibre, 78% moisture content.
Composition of other flavours
Pouches
Feeding recommendations
A feeding change takes time, please take time and adjust the feeding amount according to the needs of your pet. We recommend using a kitchen scale. The specified values are indicative and serve as a guide. They depend on age, breed, activity and other factors. Please feed them at room temperature and provide fresh drinking water at each feeding. Supervised feeding is recommended.
| Animal weight in kg | Feeding quantity in g |
| 4 | 233 |
| 5 | 271 |
| 6 | 306 |
| 7 | 339 |
(Source: packaging)
Price
The cans are available in packs of three. The triple pack is €2.55.
(The pouches are significantly cheaper, in 12-Pack available and cost €3.95 (i.e. €0.33 per 85-gram.)
Consistency and acceptance of Cachet Wild Roots with turkey
Wild roots is quite fluffy, but compact. The smell is OK, my nose observed no significant difference to other high-quality foods.
It was well received in 3 out of 4 cats. Hexe, who is a picky eater, spurned the food.
Cats were hungry again after 1.5 hours. That’s rarely the case here.
Evaluation of Cachet Wild Roots with turkey
For me one of the most substantial deficits is the value for money. Although we have 70% „Meat“ (also pretty openly declared and even mono-proteic at the turkey) and a grain-free diet without colourings and flavourings, the meat content consists largely of by-products. Even the 10% turkey meat is still mechanically recovered.
The declaration remains unclear with regard to mineral content (eg. if there is a balanced calcium-to-phosphorus ratio or not.) It isn’t clear which by-products and which oils and fats were used. Beta-1,3/1,6-glucan is in itself quite interesting, for the immune system and to assist with various health problems. It’s often mentioned in connection with medicinal fungi. However, one wonders if it doen’t make more sense to work specifically on demand instead of creating „functional food“ from the start. The same is with herbs.
The nutritional additives are above the official minimum values. Vitamins A and D should be already included sufficiently by the ingredients used. Regarding thiamine, unfortunately a big issue with processed cat food, I have my doubts. Of course, you can’t be sure from the information provided. Fat could be a bit more. The feeding recommendations lie below the values calculated on the basis of metabolic body weight.
Bentonite,known as cat litter or clay (eg. for detoxification), is used under the E number E558 as carrier material, filler, anti-caking and anti-foaming agent. In effect, this ensures the food’s fluffy consistency.
Conclusion:There is worse cat food but also a wide selection of high-quality cat food with more transparent declaration, especially for this price.
For comparison: A cat with 5 kg arithmetically would have to eat 294 g of this cat food a day to cover its energy needs. That means at a price of €2.55 for 255 g (3 x 85 g) you would have to pay €2.94 a day per cat. With €3.00 I can buy high-quality cat food for 4 cats a day. With B.A.R.F. anyway. ;-)
The price for a cat food with the composition of ‚Cachet Wild Roots‘ in my opinion is justified in no way.
Note: The food was only temporarily available at Aldi Süd.