Victor vs Blue Buffalo: Which Dog Food Is Better?

Are you comparing Victor vs. Blue Buffalo for the newest four-legged friend to enter your life? Finding the perfect dog food for your furry best friend is challenging because many brands release new products annually, filled with chemicals and compounds with scientific-sounding names and ingredients. It isn’t very clear, especially when you want only the best for your pup.

Before we dive into detailed comparisons between both dog food brands, in this case, Victor vs. Blue Buffalo, we must point out that both are phenomenal. They offer tasty ingredients and the necessary nutrition for a growing dog, and the price point is ideal for a busy household with more than a furry mouth to feed each day.

But we pick our favorites for each stage of life and also compare their wet and grain-free options. Now, are you ready to see how they stack up?

Note: Clicking the above links takes you to Chewy.com, where you can get additional product information and customer reviews. If you make a purchase, we earn a commission at no additional cost to you.

Brand History

Both of these brands have long and storied histories that put them near the top of every “best of” dog food brand list. Like many of the top brand names on the market today, these are family-formed and -operated companies putting out high-quality products designed using science and love.

Victor

Victor Dog Food built its reputation by offering premium pet nutrition. Each ingredient serves a purpose in your pet’s life. At their Texas-based facilities, their goal is to guarantee a happier, healthier dog in your life.

To start, the company utilizes a dog kibble formula with their VPRO blend — a formula meant to promote better digestion and immune system functionality in your furry friend.

At its heart, Victor is a caring, compassionate, American-owned and -operated company that aims to help dogs live better lives.

Blue Buffalo

Founded in 2003, Blue Buffalo Dog Food produces quality pet kibble using only quality, natural ingredients and real meat. They do not include corn, wheat, soy, or by-products.

According to the Bishops who founded and run the company, Blue Buffalo began as a love letter to their Airedale, by the name of Blue, who endured health complications during his lifetime. Their goal was to feed their beloved pet the best food possible. The Blue Buffalo we’ve come to know and love was born.

Recalls

Any pet owner’s last thing to hear secondhand is a dog food recall. Knowing that you are feeding your beloved pet tainted food is terrible with the best intentions in mind. Many companies close their doors because of severe recalls.

When it comes to Victor Dog Food vs. Blue Buffalo Dog Food, knowing which has endured recalls and how many can significantly affect your decision to buy one or the other.

Victor

Victor has had one recall in its history. In cooperation with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Mid America Pet Food, the parent company of Victor, issued a voluntary recall of several brands due to potential Salmonella contamination in October of 2023. The recall was updated in November 2023 to include more products.

This recall affects 20 of Victor’s dog food products. All recalled products have a Best By date before 10/31/2024. See the company’s information on this recall for a complete list of affected products. They include product pictures for reference.

You can also get more information and stay updated on the FDA and CDC investigations. This recall affects some Victor cat products and select other pet foods sold under the brand names of Wayne Feeds Dog Food, Eagle Mountain Pet Foods, and Member’s Mark Dog Food.

Blue Buffalo

Since its founding in 2003, Blue Buffalo has endured seven dog food recalls.

1. April 2007 — A worldwide recall affected countless kibble brands, including Blue Buffalo, due to contaminated rice from a manufacturer who sourced their ingredients from China.
2. October 2010 — Blue Buffalo recalled their dog kibble products after detecting large quantities of vitamin D, after which sixteen dogs fell ill.
3. November 2015 — Blue Buffalo recalled their chew bones after they discovered trace amounts of Salmonella, though zero illnesses were reported.
4. May 2016 — Blue Buffalo voluntarily recalled their kibble due to moisture found in the packaging, which caused mold.
5. February 2017 — Blue Buffalo recalled their wet food voluntarily because of aluminum contamination.
6. March 2017 — Blue Buffalo recalled products due to foil packaging contamination.
7. March 2017 — For the second time that month, Blue Buffalo recalled its dog food due to excessive beef thyroid hormone levels, according to the FDA.

Winner

It is clear here that Victor Dog Food is the clear-cut winner in terms of product recalls. Compared to Blue Buffalo’s seven recalls, one reported recall in their long history is a better track record.

Food Ingredients

When it comes to pet food, you want quality. You want to know, without a doubt, that the food you fill your dog’s pet bowl with is safe, delicious, and made using the best ingredients imaginable.

Both Victor and Blue Buffalo pride themselves on their ingredients. Both use fresh fruits and vegetables, real meat, and no by-products — a win for pet owners across the country.

Victor

Victor Dog Food uses their VPRO Blend, which offers benefits to all types of dogs at all ages and activity levels. The VPRO Blend includes:

1. Selenium Yeast — Essential to metabolism, cellular regeneration, and immune response support in all dog breeds.
2. Mineral Complexes — An easily absorbed collection of minerals, including zinc, manganese, and iron, promotes metabolic function and ensures a healthy coat, immune system, and paw pads in your pets.
3. Prebiotics — Prebiotics help promote immune strength, which cuts down on illness and boosts overall health in young of all ages.
4. Probiotics — Probiotics promote healthy digestive bacteria and a robust immune system.

Blue Buffalo

Blue Buffalo features nothing but the quality foods you or I would eat at dinner. They include over 160 ingredients in their dry and wet dog foods, including:

1. Apples
2. Broccoli
3. Cranberries
4. Pomegranate
5. Spinach
6. Chicken
7. Beef
8. Cod
9. Venison
10. Barley
11. Brown Rice
12. And more

Winner

In this case, where ingredients matter most, knowing precisely what the manufacturer has included in each bag of dry kibble or tin of wet dog food is beneficial for pet owners. With fruits, vegetables, meats, fish, minerals, and dairy products, Blue Buffalo is our clear winner when it comes to ingredients.

---

Puppy Formulas

Both brands include various wet and dry dog foods specifically designed for every stage in your pet’s life, from puppy to senior pup. As a young puppy, what you feed your dog each day matters. The right puppy chow promotes growth and overall well-being.

Victor

Victor Dog Food features a broad selection of puppy chow options, from high-energy to grain-free options and everything in between.

In what we can only describe as the ultimate convenience, Victor allows you to sort their products to customize your experience. You can sort by life stage, primary protein, and special considerations, like performance, treats, weight management, and high protein.

Some of their notable options include Hi-Pro Plus, Professional, Grain-Free Lamb Meal & Sweet Potato, Nutra Pro, and numerous canned food options.

Blue Buffalo

Blue Buffalo offers 19 dog food products designed specifically with puppies in mind. Like Victor, you can sort based on your needs, including breed size, unique formulas, recipes, flavors, and product lines.

Most of their puppy chow options are grain-free, though they offer numerous high-protein diets that feature chicken, brown rice, and vegetables.

Winner

Blue Buffalo offers a more significant number of choices with more protein options and better ingredients overall for puppy food. Their numerous Life Protection and Wilderness product lines ensure fantastic health benefits for puppies of any size or age.

---

Adult Formulas

Both companies offer a more extensive selection of both dry and wet food products when it comes to adult dog formulas. You have meals designed to boost performance and dietary restrictions and ensure your pet stays energized for their evening walk or playtime in the park.

Victor

Victor features nineteen adult dog food formulas, from grain-free and energy-boosting options to healthy weight and performance formulas.

One of their most popular recipes, Nutra Pro, is high in meat protein, with added plants, veggies, and grains. It is an all-purpose kibble meant for breeds of any size up to 40 pounds. The most significant factor here is the ingredients, including premium beef, chicken, and fish, plus all the vitamins, minerals, and essential fatty acids an adult dog requires.

Some highlights of Nutra Pro include:

• High protein, low carb formula for adult dogs
• Excellent for pregnant and lactating females
• It offers sustained energy for sporting dogs.
• Fortified with vitamins and amino acids
• Made up of gluten-free grains
• VPRO blend for better digestion, immune system functionality, and healthy skin and coat

Blue Buffalo

Blue Buffalo features an astounding 76 products in their adult dog food line, from Life Protection to Wilderness. Their unique formulas include digestive care, high protein, food sensitivity, prey feeding, grain-free, and weight management options.

Their Life Protection formula features:

• Only real chicken, no by-products
• No corn, wheat, or soy
• No artificial flavoring or preservatives
• Notable boost to immune system health
• Healthy oxidative balance

On top of the wide selection of formulas, Blue Buffalo offers several proteins, from duck and lamb to rabbit and salmon, along with all of the usuals, like chicken and beef.

Winner

Once again, Blue Buffalo takes the cake with its extensive adult kibble offerings. Pet owners who want options — over 76 adult dog food products — enjoy the selection and chance to customize what their pet eats daily. If your adult dog requires a special diet, you can be sure Blue Buffalo has something in their lineup to suit.

---

Senior Formulas

Once your beloved dog begins to age, switching up its diet is essential to ensure continuing health and digestive functionality and to offer a little energy. As dogs grow old, most dogs tend to mellow. They don’t want to walk or play as often, but it’s essential to remain active while the body allows. The right food can help.

Both Victor and Blue Buffalo feature dozens of products designed specifically for senior/mature dogs of any breed and size.

Victor

Victor offers many of the same formulas for senior dogs as it does for adult dogs and even a few from the puppy chow line. Their VPRO formula, paired with high-quality ingredients like salmon, chicken, and sweet potato, ensures a healthy meal for a pup at any stage in their life.

Some of their most popular senior dog food options include Multi-Pro, which features beef, chicken, pork, and numerous vegetables. Other favorites include the Select and Purpose lines, both of which they designed with performance and health benefits in mind.

Blue Buffalo

In comparison, Blue Buffalo offers fourteen senior dog food products, with their Life Protection Formula leading the pack. But Blue Buffalo realizes the importance of care and bolstering the health of an aging dog. This is why their Natural Veterinary Diet line features weight management, mobility support, kidney support, food intolerance, and gastrointestinal support formulas for any ailment for any size or breed of dog in your home.

Winner

Once again, Blue Buffalo astounds with the sheer number of choices and formulas explicitly designed with aging pups in mind. Their Natural Veterinary Diet wins us over, allowing pet owners to keep caring for their beloved four-legged friend, even with dietary restrictions, without worry.

Before choosing a dietary dog chow, remember to consult your veterinarian beforehand. Your dog may require a specialized diet or care instructions.

---

Wet Foods

There are times when kibble does not make sense. You need canned food, a wet option, to deliver protein and high-quality ingredients tenderly and straightforwardly. For elderly dogs, canned wet food is a staple.

Why wet food for dogs? There are numerous reasons why your dog may prefer canned food to dry food. For instance, your dog, especially an elderly dog, may need something more comfortable to chew. If dental concerns are a factor, or perhaps your pet has a small mouth, then canned food is the go-to route.

Both Victor and Blue Buffalo feature a few select options — not nearly as many as their dry dog food selections, but there are still enough great options to choose from.

Victor

Victor touts premium canned food filled with protein and advanced ingredients. The majority of their lineup is grain-free, though they do have lamb and rice or chicken and rice options.

As a pet owner, No matter which you choose, you’ll be happy to know that Victor takes its canned dog food formula as seriously as its dry food options. Each can feature added vitamins, minerals, and nutrients appropriate for any age.

They recommend topping their dry kibble with their canned food for added flavor. If your dog is a picky eater, that is certainly one option to explore.

Blue Buffalo

On the other hand, we have Blue Buffalo, which touts a staggering lineup of over 100 types of canned wet food designed for any situation, any dog breed, or age group. From grain-free meals to canned puppy chow, Blue genuinely understands its market.

Blue Buffalo offers protein choices from beef and bison to trout and turkey, among others, when it comes to wet food. The chances are that your dog may eat better than you with Blue Buffalo.

What impresses us most is the broad selection. A company with over 100 varieties of canned dog food is, to put it plainly, impressive.

Unfortunately, the downside to such a wide variety is choosing the right formula. Your pup may hate the taste of turkey or bison, or trout. You may find it’s trial and error for a short while to discover precisely which type of canned food your dog enjoys and eat without fuss.

Winner

The sheer variety of canned dog food choices makes Blue Buffalo our clear-cut winner for wet foods. Most pet owners opt for kibble, but knowing a canned dog food made with the same high-quality ingredients is available offers peace of mind.

Blue Buffalo brings the same commitment to quality and tasty formulas to all their products.

---

Grain-Free

It’s not just humans who suffer from grain allergies. Some dogs cannot stomach gluten, which is found in wheat, and they need a special diet to grow. But finding grain or gluten-free dog food can be challenging.

Thankfully, both Victor and Blue Buffalo offer grain-free formulas built for puppies, adults, and senior dogs.

Victor

Victor offers six grain-free types of dry and three types of wet dog food. Their kibble comes in various choices, including lamb, chicken, sweet potato, etc. They also have formulas designed for puppies, adult dogs, and seniors who need nutrients.

While limited in their choices, Victor’s grain-free formula has won countless pet owners seeking restricted dietary solutions. For example, their Grain Free Active Dog & Puppy mix features plenty of protein, vitamins, minerals, fatty acids, amino acids, and their VPRO Blend. Victor recommends this one for growing dogs and pregnant females.

Blue Buffalo

Blue Buffalo offers fifteen unique grain-free formulas, including kibble options. Their grain-free options include turkey, potato, salmon, duck, and lamb. With such tasty proteins, your dog surely won’t fuss over the missing grain.

Blue Buffalo offers its BLUE Basics, True Solutions, and Natural Veterinary Diet formulas for those dogs who cannot eat grain. Though the latter is a little more specialized, these are all excellent choices, so you may wish to speak with your veterinarian before feeding your dog a big bowl.

Winner

Living with and taking care of a dog with a food allergy is tough. Finding the perfect formula that your furry friend can eat is even more challenging. Blue Buffalo makes discovering the best grain-free dry dog food more manageable and approachable for exhausted pet owners. Their lineup is filled with super proteins and vegetables. They even offer more specialized dietary formulas for those pups who are worse off.

---

Additional Resources

It’s always nice to see a pet product company that genuinely cares about its customers. Many these days are going above and beyond to offer additional resources in the forms of guides, tips, and other resources one may take advantage of.

When looking at both Blue Buffalo and Victor, we felt compelled to explore their other resources to see how they go about helping pet owners alongside their fantastic food options.

Victor Dog Food

When it comes to additional resources, Victor is somewhat limited in its available options. Their website features an extensive Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) section, which details their dog food products, their retailers, safety and quality factors, and career opportunities.

Alongside their FAQ, which is informative in its own right, Victor also offers a comparison section. You can only compare their products, though, which is somewhat limiting. They allow you to pick the formula you’re interested in and then put it against another, like their Hi-Pro Plus.

For new dog owners who are unsure of which pet food product to buy, their comparison tool is undoubtedly useful, especially if your dog requires a specialized diet or if you’re unclear about which formulas contain which ingredients.

Blue Buffalo Dog Food

Once more, Blue Buffalo blows our expectations out of the water. The additional resources section of their website is comprehensive and jam-packed with helpful information for pet owners.

Blue Buffalo offers countless valuable articles that are updated or released regularly. There are helpful pet tips, community involvement programs, educational materials about grains in pet foods, and the Blue’s Buddies program.

Winner

For pet owners seeking additional information, practical tips, or fun articles to enjoy in their spare time, no one compares to Blue Buffalo. Their resources are updated regularly and loaded with information for new and old pet owners alike.

Of course, their dog food matters most here, but knowing a pet food company goes out of its way to help pet owners elsewhere makes them worthy of support. Many pet owners around the nation have scratched their heads in worry at something their pets did. Knowing the same company you buy your food from offers some support in the form of answers ensures peace of mind.

---

Our Overall Pick

Both Victor and Blue Buffalo offer a fantastic selection of dry and canned dog foods using only the highest-quality ingredients available. But, we can only select one clear winner for pet owners to trust.

Blue Buffalo comes out on top in all categories except recalls. While the vast majority of their seven recalls were voluntary, which speaks volumes about their quality control and dedication to exceptional products, Victor Dog Food has had only one recall.

If you can look past the multiple recalls over the years, Blue Buffalo produces high-quality dry and canned dog selections with excellent proteins, fruits, vegetables, vitamins, minerals, and zero by-products included. It is everything your dog wants and needs in a healthy diet.

Furthermore, Blue Buffalo goes above and beyond to help everyday pet owners through their resources, including helpful articles and community-oriented organizations that bring pet owners together to discuss the hardships and fun of living with a dog.

Since 2003, Blue Buffalo has become the go-to choice for dog food amongst pet owners across the country, and its reign doesn’t seem to have an end in sight. Victor remains an excellent choice, there’s no doubt about that, though, so whichever brand you prefer, you cannot go wrong.

Looking For Other Healthy Dog Food Options?

We understand if neither of the brands above is suitable for your pup. Fortunately, owners have a wide range of options, with more being added daily. Finding the healthiest dog food for your pup depends on age, health, lifestyle, and budget. Some dogs do well on traditional dry kibble and wet food. Other pups may need different options. Owners can look into fresh foods, freeze-dried dog foods, or even vegan dog food. If your doggo has a sensitive stomach, a medical condition, is overweight, has diabetes, or needs a prescription for food, it is best to talk to your veterinarian first.