Country of Origin filter

[David]

Some of the more eagle-eyed of you may have spotted a new filter on the dog food directory - Country of Origin.

You can now narrow your results by country or continent which I hope will help of those of you concerned about supply chains or carbon footprints.

I am still waiting for a few companies to come back to me but the origins of 90% of the foods and treats on the site have been confirmed.

Give it a whirl here.

Next on the to do list is a filter for the targeted health conditions!

What else could we add or change on the site to make finding the right dog food easier?

[Dottie]

I noticed the little country of origin flags a while ago. This is a useful feature.

[Meg]

As a suggested answer to the question : "What else could we add or change on the site to make finding the right dog food easier?" may I propose that "Dry food" filter searching be considered (expanded?) to include the way the food is made/processed.

We are fortunate to have access to, and a greater understanding of, the methods used to produce dog foods these days; resulting in our making informed choices with processing perhaps a factor. Interestingly the recent poll here: https://www.allaboutdogfood.co.uk/forum/dog-foods/3/all-about-our-dogs-dry-food-what-type-of-dry-food-are-you-feeding-nowadays/1355/ seems to bear this out as there are already results showing feeding of differently processed complete dry dog foods, namely Extruded,  Cold-Pressed, Oven-Baked, Semi-moist.

So for example if someone specifically wanted to feed "Cold-pressed" food then it could be handy to be able to search directly for that option, perhaps as a subset search after a "Dry complete" search, or even as a standalone option.

[Meg]

......following on with another suggestion to "make finding the right dog food easier" may I also propose considering a search for the manner that dog foods are packaged.

For example adding filtering for Cans, Pouches, Cartons, Chubbs, Packs, Trays as options could be helpful for those who have a preference; perhaps due to available storage space or perhaps as a result of finding it 'difficult' to 'get to' the food, (for example opening cans may be difficult as may tearing open a pouch or tray ) .

[Tinyplanets]

This all sounds useful. Both processing method and packaging are important to me and would be a consideration when searching.

[David]

Hi Meg,

Great ideas as always. The expanded food types filter has actually been on the cards for a while so with your post I decided to knuckle down and get it done. Let me know what you think.

The packaging filter will come later.

[David]

I should say, it's not yet rolled out to the mobile site

[Meg]

Have had a pretty thorough testing of the new filters with several combinations of options and so far all is working in an excellent manner    Huge thanks David for doing this as it makes the food searching options more individualised, and as expected gives a precise result immediately and is ideal as a basis to further optionally filter.


 There are some great options now with the choice of dog foods everyone, just click on the "Type of food" filter on the allaboutdogfood directory here :

https://www.allaboutdogfood.co.uk/the-dog-food-directory

[Dottie]

Thank you for the additional work on the Directory David.

[David]

No problem at all! More updates and features are coming soon but if there's anything else you would like to see added or changed on the site, do let me know.

[Red_Akita]

Not sure this is the right place, but I have a suggestion for the food directory filter and I didn't want to create a new thread just for that.
I thought it would be nice in the "type of food" to add a "single protein" option. Users can already (sort-of) do it by leaving only 1 meat source unticked in the "avoid ingredients" filter, but I thought this would be a nice add-on anyway... if it's not too complicated, of course!
This would actually help people who have dogs with food intolerance (even though I wouldn't trust a single protein food for a food allergy... but that's a separate issue).

[David]

I thought it would be nice in the "type of food" to add a "single protein" option. Users can already (sort-of) do it by leaving only 1 meat source unticked in the "avoid ingredients" filter, but I thought this would be a nice add-on anyway... if it's not too complicated, of course!
This would actually help people who have dogs with food intolerance (even though I wouldn't trust a single protein food for a food allergy... but that's a separate issue).

Excellent idea Red_Akita. It will need a certain amount of programming and/or data collection to identify the single protein foods so it may take a little while but I will add it to the updates list.

[Meg]

"...........if there's anything else you would like to see added or changed on the site, do let me know."

David, as you know (and we greatly appreciate) the filters in the allaboutdogfood Dog food directory are extremely helpful in finding a diet that helps to avoid those ingredients our dogs are reacting to (in an undesirable manner... )

Having experienced a dog diagnosed as having intolerance to EGGS and to SWEET POTATO please would you consider adding these as additional filters to the Dog Food Directory to help with searching for foods without these ingredients. And many thanks of course.

[David]

Thanks Meg, I'll add those to the next round of updates.