How Can Zero Preservative Natural Dog Food Have a 12-month Shelf Life?

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By Ravi RathiAug 29, 2025

What Is Natural Dog Food?

Natural dog food is made with real, everyday ingredients that humans also use for their meals. It does not have artificial flavours, additives, or synthetic derivatives. For example, a ‘chicken-flavoured’ meal may or may not have any real chicken. However, in the natural dog food category, if the recipe says that it has chicken, it will have real chicken.

Natural dog food is also minimally processed and closer to what dogs would eat in a natural setting. It may only go through non-chemical processes like physical processing, heat processing, purification, extraction, hydrolysis, enzymolysis or fermentation. It is not bulked up with artificial fillers. Natural dog food not only retains the natural nutrients of the ingredients but also their taste and texture, unlike kibbles, which are highly processed dry dog food.

Why Are Kibbles Harmful for Your Dog?

Kibbles are usually made with discarded or expired veggies, poor-quality meat or meat byproducts, grains, and other substandard ingredients. Then, they are put through a processing method called extrusion, in which the ingredients are mixed, liquified, aerated, and then baked twice at very high temperatures. Whatever little nutritional value the low-grade ingredients had, even that is lost during this process. To make up for this and to add palatability, manufacturers then add fats and nutrients to the dry food artificially, which barely makes up for the loss. Next, it is loaded with preservatives to give it a long shelf life.

Ultimately, kibbles become dry, pellet-like bits that are highly processed and have artificial chemicals, fillers, and preservatives added to them. When you feed it to your pets, not only is it unable to fulfil their nutritional needs, but it also adds harmful components to their bodies.

Preservatives are usually used in dog food to prevent spoilage, extend shelf life, keep the food fresh, improve palatability, and inhibit the growth of microbes in the food. While these are important functions to keep in mind, the negative effects of using preservatives far outweigh the benefits that they offer.

Some common preservatives and their potential risks:

Butylated Hydroxyanisole (BHA): May cause liver and kidney damage; carcinogenic.

Butylated Hydroxytoluene (BHT): May cause liver and kidney damage; carcinogenic.

Ethoxyquin: May cause liver damage, immune system disorders, and reproductive problems; toxic.

Propylene Glycol: May cause Heinz body anaemia.

Sodium Nitrite: May react with some compounds in the body and form nitrosamines that have been associated with cancer.

Potassium Sorbate: May cause gastrointestinal issues.

Calcium Propionate: May cause allergic reactions or gastrointestinal issues.

Now, unless you cook your dog a balanced meal every single day and feed it to them immediately, some shelf life is needed for dog food. So, there are other ways of preserving food’s nutrients and integrity that we need to explore.

Some common preservatives and their potential risks

Are All Kinds of Natural Dog Food Good for Dogs?

Natural dog food contains real vegetables and meat and is usually minimally processed. It is better for dogs than dry kibble, which has artificial additives and goes through chemically synthetic processes. However, the regulations around what food can be considered ‘natural’ in the pet food industry are pretty lenient.

Ingredients that come from plant, animal or mined sources are allowed, as well as some additives in low amounts that are safe according to good manufacturing practices. This can become a problem because many companies use these gaps in the regulations for their own benefit. For some brands, although the food may have components that are naturally derived, the quality of these ingredients may be suspect. They use rejected vegetables, leftover scraps of meat, and other nutritionally deficient ingredients that may be byproducts of human consumption.

So, when you’re choosing food for your pets, it is not enough to just go by the ‘natural’ tag on the products. You must also carefully consider the nutritional value of the ingredients. Check the amount of protein present, the calorie count, and if there is starch. These will usually give you a good idea of the products you’d want to put in your pup’s bowl.

How Does BLEP’s Zero Preservative Natural Dog Food Get Shelf Life?

At BLEP, we proudly tell customers that our food is 100% natural, has zero preservatives, and our sealed packs have a shelf life of 12 months from the date of manufacturing. Many get suspicious. They keep asking us, how do we have such a long shelf life if there are no preservatives added to the food?

Well, the reason is our packaging. The natural ingredients that are used in the making of BLEP food are mashed and mixed together in industrial-grade mixing machines at our manufacturing unit. Then, special retort pouches are filled with this mixture using mechanical filling machines. The packs are sealed and sent off to the retorting machine. This machine then steams the food at a safe temperature, which cooks and sterilises it, getting rid of all harmful microbes inside. There is minimal human intervention in the whole process, which adds an added layer of safety.

Thus, the steam cooking makes sure that the food inside is free of microbes, while the seal of the packs ensures that the food does not come in contact with outside air, avoiding oxidation or contact with external microbes. This makes the food inside the sealed packs completely safe for consumption for at least 12 months from the date of manufacturing. The comparatively low heat of the retort cooking process also helps the ingredients retain their maximum nutritional value.

However, there’s a catch. As soon as you open the packaging, the food becomes exactly like everyday home-cooked food. So, if there are any leftovers, you have to put them in the fridge and serve them to your pet within 48 hours.

Since BLEP treats are basically dehydrated chicken breast strips, you can keep the open pack in the fridge or in an airtight container, and use it for up to a month.

How Does BLEP’s Zero Preservative Natural Dog Food Get Shelf Life?

What Are the Benefits of BLEP’s Zero Preservative Natural Dog Food?

BLEP’s zero-preservative natural dog food is made of high-quality, human-grade ingredients, making it safe even for human consumption. All our ingredients are sourced from trusted resources. Our chicken, lamb, fish, eggs, and paneer come from reputed suppliers, while the vegetables and fruits that we use come directly from the farmers of Haryana. We use cold-pressed sunflower oil from Rajasthan, the flax seeds are sourced from Uttarakhand, and the fish oil is from Gujarat — it’s human-edible and has a high EPA and DHA ratio. We ensure that we only put in what is mentioned in our food label, and absolutely Nothing Else. All our manufacturing is in-house; we proudly make it in India.

We hold ourselves to very high quality standards; therefore, you’ll start seeing some positive changes in your dog within a short period of giving them BLEP. You can choose among 7 BLEP natural food recipes, 2 BLEP bone broth recipes, and BLEP’s chicken jerky treats.

Healthy Coat and Skin: The high-quality, natural ingredient-derived protein, collagen, omega 3 and 6, antioxidants, and anti-inflammatories in BLEP products keep coats shiny and skin protected.

Smooth Digestion: The ingredients are all locally sourced and human-grade. Vegetables and fruits like sweet potato, carrots, zucchini, blueberries, and such, are also great sources of dietary fibre. This makes digestion easier for pups.

All-day Energy: BLEP products have calories derived from healthy sources, instead of additives, starches, or sugar. Ingredients like sweet potato, cauliflower, fish oil, cold-pressed sunflower oil, etc. give your dogs energy the right way.

Weight Management: Being nutritionally balanced and containing zero sugar, BLEP will automatically help in weight management. It is also portion controlled, which helps Pet Parents judge exactly how much to feed their pups.

Reduced Poop Smell: Food that is hard to digest, such as fillers like corn, wheat, or soy, gets to the large intestine half-digested and gets fermented longer in the presence of gut bacteria. This releases stronger odour. Because BLEP food is easier to digest, the poop odour is reduced.