Fresh Dog Food and Pet Meal Delivery: AI Visibility Market Discovery Index

Benchmark Summary

Questions This Section Answers

• Which fresh dog food brand leads AI recommendation coverage in October 2026?
• Which brands recorded the largest coverage gains and declines since the July 2026 baseline?

The Farmer's Dog leads valid recommendation coverage at 78.8% in October 2026, ahead of JustFoodForDogs at 77.1%, a gap of 1.7 points between the top two brands. The largest coverage increase since baseline came from Freshpet, which rose from 40.8% in July 2026 to 48.2% in October 2026, a movement beyond normal month-to-month variation. The largest coverage decline came from Nom Nom, which fell from 43.0% in July 2026 to 28.8% in October 2026, also beyond normal variation. Both increases and declines were recorded this month, making October 2026 a mixed month for the category.

JustFoodForDogs recorded the largest month-over-month coverage gain in the category, rising 10.6 points from 66.5% in September 2026 to 77.1% in October 2026, its largest single-month move in the series. The Farmer's Dog also rose 9.4 points from 69.4% in September 2026 to 78.8% in October 2026.

The October 2026 benchmark produced 510 qualified observations, up from 502 in July 2026 (baseline).

Current Benchmark at a Glance

August 2026 and September 2026 sat between the baseline and current months. Recommendation-shaped answer share moved from 45.3% in August 2026 to 39.0% in September 2026 before rising to 59.2% in October 2026.

Qualified surface breadth counts the canonical AI/search surface families with at least one qualified observation: ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, Perplexity, AI Overviews, and AI Mode. All six families were represented in each month.

For the strategic interpretation of this benchmark, read CiteWorks Studio's analysis of How AI Search Is Recommending Fresh Dog Food and Pet Meal Delivery

Research Scope and Qualification

The public benchmark denominator is the qualified observation count for each month: 502 in July 2026 (baseline) and 510 in October 2026 (current month). Brand-level percentages in this report use the qualified observations as the denominator, not a larger raw collection. See the AI Visibility Market Discovery Methodology for full qualification rules.

Current Brand Standings

Questions This Section Answers

• How do the tracked fresh dog food brands rank by recommendation coverage and top-three placement?
• Where do presence rate, valid recommendation coverage, and rank-one rate separate the leading brands?

All rates are for October 2026 with 510 qualified observations as the denominator.

How to Read the Standings

• Presence rate: share of qualified observations where the brand appears in any capacity.
• Valid recommendation coverage: share of qualified observations where the brand receives a valid recommendation.
• Top-three rate: share of qualified observations where the brand is recommended in the top three positions.
• Rank-one rate: share of qualified observations where the brand is the first recommendation.
• Net sentiment: positive minus negative mentions divided by total mentions; always between -1 and 1.

For formulas and denominator rules, see AI Visibility Market Discovery Metric Definitions.

Recommendation Coverage Movement

Questions This Section Answers

• Which fresh dog food brands gained the most recommendation coverage since the July 2026 baseline?
• Which brand saw the largest coverage decline, and what happened to its placement in the process?

Largest Increase: Freshpet

Freshpet rose 7.4 points from 40.8% in July 2026 to 48.2% in October 2026, beyond normal month-to-month variation and the largest cumulative gain in the category. The brand climbed from 40.2% in August 2026 to 43.4% in September 2026, then added 4.8 points in October 2026, rising in each of the two most recent months. Top-three placement moved up 9.6 points from 15.7% in July 2026 to 25.3% in October 2026, and rank-one placement rose 7.0 points from 1.4% to 8.4%. Presence rose 5.1 points from 51.6% to 56.7% over the same period.

Largest Decline: Nom Nom

Nom Nom fell 14.2 points from 43.0% in July 2026 to 28.8% in October 2026, beyond normal variation and the largest cumulative decline in the series. The brand dropped sharply from 43.0% in July 2026 to 27.7% in August 2026, a 15.3-point single-month move, then held near that level at 29.4% in September 2026 and 28.8% in October 2026. Presence fell 19.7 points from 54.6% in July 2026 to 34.9% in October 2026, and top-three placement fell 4.6 points from 18.3% to 13.7%. Net sentiment held at 0.9 across the series.

Category Leader: The Farmer's Dog

The Farmer's Dog led valid recommendation coverage in every month of the series, reaching 78.8% in October 2026. The brand recorded the highest top-three rate at 73.5% and the highest rank-one rate at 51.4% among tracked brands, along with the strongest presence rate at 91.2%. Top-three placement rose 8.2 points from 65.3% in July 2026 to 73.5% in October 2026. The gap between The Farmer's Dog and Nom Nom widened to 50.0 points in October 2026 from 33.7 points in July 2026.

Other Movement

JustFoodForDogs rose 5.6 points from 71.5% in July 2026 to 77.1% in October 2026, beyond normal variation, including a 10.6-point gain from 66.5% in September 2026. A Pup Above, PetPlate, and Sundays for Dogs each moved within normal variation since baseline, though each posted a significant prior-month move: PetPlate up 10.0 points from 15.9% in September 2026 to 25.9% in October 2026, A Pup Above up 3.2 points from 4.0% to 7.2%, and Sundays for Dogs up 3.0 points from 2.9% to 5.9%. Maev fell 3.6 points from 4.6% in July 2026 to 1.0% in October 2026, beyond normal variation, its third consecutive month of decline.

Recommendation Placement Snapshot

Questions This Section Answers

• How differently are The Farmer's Dog and JustFoodForDogs placed despite their close coverage rates?
• Which brands lead on top-three and first-position placement in October 2026?

Coverage alone does not show how prominently a brand is recommended. Among the three leading brands by coverage, The Farmer's Dog led both first-position placement at 51.4% and top-three placement at 73.5% in October 2026, with JustFoodForDogs following on top-three placement at 67.5%.

Close coverage can still hide different first-position rates: The Farmer's Dog and JustFoodForDogs sit 1.7 points apart on coverage, yet The Farmer's Dog holds a 30.8-point lead on rank-one placement in October 2026.

Buyer-Intent Distribution

All qualified observations in the current series fell into the Brand Recommendation class.

The current public series measures brand-recommendation discovery and does not yet contain qualified observations in the pricing or multi-brand comparison classes.

Historical Measurement Record

This is an evergreen benchmark URL. New measurements are added to the same report.

Top 10 Cited Domains

Questions This Section Answers

• Which domains and source types shape the AI citations behind fresh dog food recommendations?
• How concentrated are citations across the top 10 domains?

A total of 7,107 citations were observed across all AI platform responses in this measurement period, drawn from 998 unique domains.

Citations are concentrated in a small number of domains, with the top 10 accounting for roughly 40% of all citations from less than 1% of unique domains found. One tracked brand's own domain, freshpet.com, appears in the top 10, cited 140 times across most platforms. Review and editorial sources dominate the list: dogfoodadvisor.com and petful.com are specialist pet-food review sites, while forbes.com, businessinsider.com, reddit.com, and youtube.com are general-interest or user-generated sources that reach across all six surface families.

Evidence and Source Layer

Questions This Section Answers

• What evidence does the benchmark retain for each prompt-level observation?
• Does a cited source prove it caused a brand recommendation?

The benchmark is built from prompt-level observations that retain the query, AI/search surface, answer, brand outcome, recommendation placement, sentiment, and, where exposed, citations or attributable evidence sources. Source presence is evidence about the information environment. It is not automatically proof that the source caused the recommendation.

Scope Boundaries

This public benchmark does not measure:

• Market share or revenue attribution
• Attributable sales or conversions
• Every possible AI response across all models and configurations
• Organic-search ranking outside the six tracked surface families
• Social media mention volume or off-platform sentiment
• Private, gated, or sponsored channels
• Causality from a metric movement alone

About This Benchmark

The LLM Authority Index AI Visibility Market Discovery Index tracks how generative AI and search surfaces present brands in response to consumer discovery prompts. It records presence, recommendation coverage, placement, and sentiment as distinct signals across six canonical AI/search surface families.

• AI Visibility Market Discovery Methodology
• AI Visibility Market Discovery Metric Definitions
• AI Visibility Market Discovery Research Standards
• Modeled AI Visibility Authority Value

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