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Location: Surrey
Joined: Jun 2010
Posts: 4,420
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It can be as expensive or cheap as you make it. Some people may be limited by what's available - the main raw food suppliers tend to be in the North or East of England, like Landywoods, Durham Animal Feeds and The Dogfood Company. These companies produce low-price meat (mostly minces but do stock some chunks and whole animals, e.g. rabbit) and supply bones and offal, so everything you need really, at the lowest price. There's another company called Rawtogo that delivery nationwide but you do pay for this priviledge since they have to pay couriers to delivery it to those distances.
You then get the other extreme which is companies producing "complete raw", i.e. they sort the balance of meat, bone and offal for you and provide it in nuggets or similar. Natural Instinct is one, and Darling's Real Food is another I know of. These are more expensive, but they do use top quality meat - NI use human-grade and Daring's use organic meat, so you're paying for that premium.
There's a few inbetween, such as Price Choice and Nature's Menu who sell chunks of meats, minces and ready-mixed blocks. These have the benefit of being more readily-available in petshops so you're not forced to order a minimum order, if you have a local shop selling them then you can grab as much as you need, as often as you need to.
Alternatively there's the supermarket route - again, convenient, but this can work out pricey as you're paying for human grade food. There's also butchers, which can work out very cheap depending on their generosity - butchers have to pay to dispose of waste so if you can find a local butcher who prepares meat on-site (many nowadays buy it already cut) then they may be happy to give you chicken carcasses, bones, etc. for free, or for cheap. Downside to this is you're unlikely to get much meat from them, as obviously they can sell this at a higher price to customers. As well as butchers you could try other avenues like your local hunters - deer, rabbit, etc. who may be happy to give you leftovers, stripped carcasses, etc. Abbatoirs or caterers who do their own butchering may be worth a try as well.
If you're in Essex then I would see if The Dogfood Company will deliver to you, their items are a good price, I'm more than happy with the quality (he does cheaper items I wouldn't feed too regularly, e.g. the beef can be a bit fatty, but he sells beef chunks that aren't so fatty at a higher price so you get what you pay for), he delivers to your door (and will leave it somewhere safe if you're not home) and the dogs love the food. I pay £40 a month for two large breed dogs which is cheaper than a premium commercial food, and my dogs have never looked in better condition.