PFAS in Pet Food Bags, Where Nobody Will Tell You What the Liner Is

We graded fifteen dry pet foods from Purina Pro Plan, Royal Canin, Orijen, Open Farm and Best Breed. Every one scored 70 out of 100. No spread, no winner, no worst offender.

That flat result is not because the category is settled. It is because nobody discloses the thing that matters. Read the material descriptions our graders recorded and the hedging is impossible to miss: "likely polyethylene", "possible grease-resistant treatment", "standard polymer liner", "typical dry pet food packaging". The most frequently recorded concern across the whole category is not a chemical at all. It is inadequate disclosure of packaging composition and testing.

To be clear about what this page covers, this is a guide to the bag, not the food. Nothing here is an assessment of nutrition, ingredients or recipe quality.

Every product we graded

Product	PFAS grade	Recorded packaging description
Purina Pro Plan Adult Dry Dog Food, Lamb & Rice	Good, 70/100	Paper and kraft outer bag with likely polyethylene lining
Purina Pro Plan Sensitive Skin & Stomach	Good, 70/100	Paper and kraft bag with possible grease-resistant treatment
Purina Pro Plan Savor Shredded Blend	Good, 70/100	Paper and cardboard bag with standard ink printing
Royal Canin Health Nutrition Medium Adult	Good, 70/100	Kraft and paper bag with a standard polymer liner
Royal Canin Small Adult Dry Dog Food	Good, 70/100	Paper and kraft bag with a standard sealant
Royal Canin Size Health Nutrition Large Breed	Good, 70/100	Paper and cardboard bag, standard dry pet food packaging
Royal Canin Size Health Nutrition Medium Adult, 40 lb	Good, 70/100	Paper and cardboard bag with a standard interior coating
Royal Canin Mini Breed 8+	Good, 70/100	Kraft paper or plastic laminate bag, typical construction
Royal Canin Adult Yorkshire Terrier	Good, 70/100	Paper and cardboard primary packaging
Orijen Dry Dog Food Original	Good, 70/100	Kibble in a paper and kraft bag
Orijen Amazing Grains Dry Dog Food	Good, 70/100	Paper and kraft paperboard bag with an interior film
Orijen Original Dry Cat Food	Good, 70/100	Paper and kraft sack with ink printing
Open Farm Farmer's Table Pork Grain-Free	Good, 70/100	Paper and cardboard bag with plastic lining, typical
Farmer's Table Pork Grain-Free Kibble, 11 lb	Good, 70/100	Paper and cardboard bag with an inner polymer coating
Best Breed Grain-Free Farmer's Chicken Recipe	Good, 70/100	Sealed pouch and tray packaging

How we graded these bags

Every grade in this article is a model-based estimate built from publicly available packaging descriptions and brand documentation, not a lab test performed by our team. A high score means lower concern based on reviewed sources, never PFAS-free and never safe. No product in this category carried published independent lab data and no brand here makes a public statement about its packaging liner that we could record. The recorded concerns were inadequate disclosure of packaging composition and testing, and separately moisture barrier failure, microbial growth and mould if a seal is compromised, which are storage questions rather than chemistry ones. You can compare any specific product using our PFAS product finder.

Why a flat 70 is worth publishing

A bag of dry kibble has to keep fat inside it from soaking through paper for months on a shelf. Something does that job. In our fifteen records that something is described as a liner, a film, a coating, a laminate or a sealant, and in not one case is it named.

Our model scores an undisclosed barrier as unresolved rather than assuming the worst, which is why these sit at 70 rather than at the bottom of the scale. We are not telling you these bags contain PFAS, because we do not know and neither does anybody reading the label. What we can say is that this is a greaseproof packaging application, that greaseproof packaging is where fluorinated coatings have historically been used, and that every manufacturer here has chosen not to describe the layer that does the work.

The two Purina records are the clearest illustration. One is recorded as likely polyethylene, another as a possible grease-resistant treatment. Those are two materially different answers, both hedged, for bags from the same brand line.

What would actually change these grades

One sentence from a manufacturer. A pet food brand that states its bag liner is polyethylene, or names its grease barrier, would move above this flat tier immediately, because our model rewards a named material over silence. No brand in this category has done it.

That is a rare situation in our data. In most categories the well-graded products win by not carrying a coating at all. Here every bag needs a barrier to function, so the available win is disclosure rather than removal, and it is sitting unclaimed.

What to avoid

• Choosing pet food on bag chemistry. Fifteen products, one grade, nothing to separate them on.
• Reading premium or grain-free branding as covering the packaging. Orijen, Open Farm and Royal Canin describe their bags in the same hedged terms as the supermarket options.
• Reading our 70 as a clean bill. It reflects an undisclosed barrier being treated as unresolved, on products where nobody has published test data.
• Storing kibble in a compromised bag. The non-chemical concerns our records flagged, moisture barrier failure and mould, are the practical ones, and decanting into a sealed container addresses them.

If you are looking at the wider question of grease-resistant packaging, our deli and sandwich paper guide and butcher paper guide cover categories where some products do disclose, and the PFAS hazard page explains how grease-resistant coatings became standard in food packaging.

Our pick

We do not have one, and inventing a winner from fifteen identical grades would be dishonest. On the evidence available, no dry pet food bag in our database is better disclosed than any other. The practical step our data does support is simple and costs nothing: decant kibble into a sealed container at home rather than feeding from the bag over weeks. That limits contact time with a liner nobody has described, and it also addresses the moisture and mould concerns our records flagged, which are the better-evidenced risks on this page. These are estimates built from disclosed materials, not laboratory proof, and no product here is being called PFAS-free or safe by us.

FAQ

Do pet food bags contain PFAS?

Our data cannot say. Every bag we graded is described with a liner, film, coating or laminate that the manufacturer does not name, and no brand here has published test results. What we can say is that keeping fat from soaking through paper is exactly the job fluorinated coatings have historically been used for, and that the composition is undisclosed across all fifteen products.

Why does every product score the same?

Because they are all described the same way. Our model responds to what a manufacturer discloses, and in this category nobody discloses the barrier layer, so there is nothing to separate one bag from another.

Does decanting the food into a container help?

It reduces how long the food sits against the bag liner, and it addresses the moisture barrier and mould concerns our records flagged, which are better evidenced than the chemical question here. Our data does not measure migration from bag to kibble, so we cannot quantify a chemical benefit.

Should I be worried about my pet's health?

Nothing in our data supports alarm. Any discussion of PFAS and health in our guides describes association, not proven causation, and grades measure estimated chemical concern based on materials and disclosure. Questions about your animal's health belong with a veterinarian rather than a product grade.