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Nom Nom offers customized fresh food plans for cats and dogs, starting at $27 per month.
Nom Nom
Nom Nom (originally known as NomNomNow) is a subscription-based service that delivers fresh cat or dog food right to your door each month, but at an average of $35 per week, it doesn’t come cheap.
To sign up, you create a profile with information about your pet, including current and target weight goals, age, and preferred protein.
We had three cats test out the service and ended up with mixed reactions, but one cat, in particular, had an exceptionally enthusiastic response to the food.
If fresh food isn’t the best fit for your cat, check out our guide to the best cat food for more options.
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If you clicked into this post, I’m willing to bet that you have a pet. And if you have a pet, I’m willing to bet that you’re just as obsessed with yours as the editors of Insider Reviews are with ours.
Most of us would do anything to help our pet overcome an injury or sickness, which was exactly what Nom Nom co-founders Zach Phillips and his brother Nate did when Zach’s dog Harlee suffered from a compromised immune system. In an effort to nurse Harlee back to health, Zach’s vet, Dr. Justin Shmalberg, helped him develop recipes for easy-to-digest food made from pure, byproduct-free ingredients. The diet helped Harlee make a dramatic recovery and inspired the idea for their business.
Out of one dog’s need for healthier and whole foods came the idea for a fresh, customizable meal plan for other dogs and cats.
Nom Nom promises “care-grade” food that’s prepared in small batches with whole ingredients you can find in grocery stores like chicken, pork, asparagus, and carrots. It’s conveniently preportioned for your pet’s exact needs — be it weight loss, weight gain, improvements in skin conditions, or specific dietary requirements. All the formulations are also safe and appropriate for pets of all ages.
When you first get started with Nom Nom, you’ll create a profile for your pet, which gives you the chance to share their current weight, target weight, and preferred protein. You have to fill this out in order to get a price quote, since portion sizes for each animal will depend on its weight. I suggest reading through the ingredients lists here before deciding in case your pet has certain dietary requirements or allergies.
Once you’ve signed up, you’ll get a shipment with samples of all the proteins they offer so you can always go back and change your preferences if it turns out your pet is partial to an unexpected option. The first box also comes with some other fun treats, like a bag of chicken jerky.
Once you’ve selected your pet’s favorite flavor, you’ll start to receive monthly shipments of 56 individual packets of food, which will arrive fresh with ice packs to keep it cool. It’s suggested that you leave the packets in the freezer and take out a few at a time to thaw in the fridge. At mealtime, just pop the refrigerated food onto a plate or bowl and you’re good to go.
Pricing
My cat, Papaya, weighs 11 pounds. To give you an idea of how much you can expect to spend, the total cost per week for the fish option is $36.73 — which isn’t cheap. The chicken option is only about a dollar cheaper.
For dogs, however, a lot of the foods are slightly less costly. For a dog that weighs 10 to 15 pounds, you can expect to spend somewhere between $30 and $37 per week depending on what protein you select.
When you check out, you’ll pay the monthly fee upfront. Delivery is free every month, and you can also save 50% on your first two weeks when you sign up. Prices start at $27 for an 8-pound cat or 20-pound dog.
Three of us here have cats, and when we were given the chance to test out Nom Nom’s fresh pet food, we all jumped at the opportunity to spoil our little monsters (despite them not having specific health concerns we hoped the food would address).
There was once a time when Papaya was not extremely passionate about food or mealtime. She usually ate most of her food, but was never really excited about it and was picky when we tried to introduce new flavors. It wasn’t until we ran out of her regular packs of Blue Wilderness salmon and turkey and had to buy a can of Wellness brand food from our bodega that we discovered a totally new side of her. She started going nuts for the new Wellness formula, meowing loudly and lapping up every last bit, which meant that we had to keep buying it.
We got our first palette of the Wellness food and began feeding it to her regularly about a week before we integrated Nom Nom into her diet, so we had already seen some improvements in her appetite. But when we started mixing the Nom Nom fish recipe into the Wellness food to transition her, she suddenly turned into the most enthusiastic little hungry monster I’ve ever seen (I mean, just look at those crazy eyes!)! We didn’t even need to entice her with the special broth or dried flavor packets they sent along with the first shipments to get her to eat it.
Sally Kaplan
Now, she’s incredibly vocal and voracious, meowing and jumping up on the counter before we can even get the food on the plate. And when I say that she goes nuts for it, I honestly mean it.
She’s started climbing up our legs to get attention, pretending to be desperate and starved so we feed her faster! It’s kind of hilarious to see her so excited like this. She’s like a different cat now — so excited for mealtime, much more vocal, and just a happier kitty overall. I could gush all day, but suffice it to say that she lives for this food.
If you can afford the cost of the service, I say go for it — at least based on my experience. The food comes conveniently pre-packaged, and it makes the feeding process so much faster and easier. Though I can’t speak to whether or not it’s helped any sort of specific condition, I can say that it’s made Papaya a better and more enthusiastic version of herself overall.
Ellen Hoffman
Ellen’s cat, Lady
Lady has only lived with us for seven months, but in that time frame, I’ve bought dozens of different dry and wet foods. My picky little Scottish fold would eat only human food if the choice was hers! So far, we’ve had the most luck with wet foods (mainly chicken, beef, or turkey) that come as morsels or shreds versus pates.
I had high hopes for Nom Nom‘s fresh chicken recipe since it doesn’t smell or look like traditional cat food. And while Lady isn’t the super fan that Papaya is, she does happily chomp away at Nom Nom’s chicken recipe whenever it’s in her bowl, and I feel like a good cat mom giving it to her since its ingredient list is made up of things I can actually find at the food store, like chicken thigh and breast, asparagus, carrot, spinach, and cantaloupe. I just wish there were as many flavor choices for cats (who have only two right now, fish or chicken) as there are for dogs (who have five).
Also, for what it’s worth, factoring in occasional sales and repeat delivery discounts from Petco, I spend on average about $1.50 per Merrick Purrfect Bistro Gourmet Shreds wet food cup and Merrick Backcountry wet food packet, which comes out to about $21 a week for 14 servings. So the additional cost of Nom Nom’s healthier food is fairly negligible for me since Lady is only 6 to 7 pounds.
Silke is a notoriously picky cat. She’s a 7-year-old who’s rather stuck in her ways (don’t tell her I told you that). She only likes a few different kinds of cat food, but she does love certain human food like tuna, smoked salmon, and most of all, bacon. Given her penchant for human food, I thought Nom Nom‘s fresh cat food would be a hit, but it wasn’t.
Silke turned her nose up at the chicken recipe and backed away rapidly when confronted with the broth. All this just goes to show that cats are contrarians. The only way to know if your cat will love Nom Nom as much as Sally’s fur baby Papaya does is to try it. Don’t be discouraged by my dear little food snob.
The bottom line
Whether you’re a pet parent who needs to customize your dog or cat’s diet due to medical concerns or you just want to provide them with better, fresher options, Nom Nom is a great service to try. Yes, it’s expensive, but so are the long-term costs of vet bills and other health problems that could potentially be addressed with a better diet.
