Why Somerford Doesn't Add Synthetic Vitamins & Minerals

September 30, 2026

Real food. Real nutrition. Nothing there just to make the label look impressive.

When you look at the ingredients in your pet's food, you may see a long list of added vitamins and minerals with complicated names.

At Somerford, we take a different approach.

Rather than building our recipes around an added synthetic vitamin and mineral premix, we believe nutrition should, wherever possible, come from real, carefully selected ingredients that naturally contain the nutrients dogs and cats need.

That means meat, organs, appropriately included raw bone and pre-fermented fruit and vegetables all have an important nutritional role within our recipes.

It's one of the reasons we're so passionate about raw feeding.

But what does "naturally occurring" actually mean? And why does the source of those nutrients matter?

Let's keep it simple.

🥩 Food First, Not a Vitamin Premix

Vitamins and minerals are essential for your pet's body.

They are involved in everything from:

Healthy bones and teeth
Muscle and nerve function
Immune health
Energy metabolism
Healthy skin and coat
Normal growth and development
Maintaining healthy cells and organs

But there is much more to nutrition than simply putting a certain amount of a vitamin or mineral into a bowl.

The body also has to digest, absorb and use it.

That's where bioavailability comes in.

Bioavailability simply refers to how much of a nutrient becomes available for the body to absorb and use once it has been eaten.

And this is important because nutrients can behave differently depending on their form. Bioavailability isn't automatically higher simply because something is natural. It can vary depending on the particular nutrient, its chemical form and a number of other factors.

At Somerford, our philosophy isn't simply:

"Synthetic bad. Natural good."

It's much more practical than that:

We provide appropriate nutrition naturally through real, carefully selected food ingredients, that's where we believe it should come from.

🌿 Nature Packages Nutrients Differently

When vitamins and minerals occur naturally within meat, organs, bone and plant ingredients, they aren't sitting there completely by themselves.

They're part of the food.

Alongside them are proteins, fats, amino acids and many other naturally occurring nutritional compounds.

Think of it this way:

A synthetic vitamin or mineral premix provides isolated nutrients that have been added to a food.

Whole-food ingredients provide nutrients as part of the food itself.

This is an important part of Somerford's food-first philosophy.

Instead of asking:

"What vitamins and minerals can we add ?"

We start by asking:

"What nutrition our ingredients naturally bring to the recipe?"

🥩🫀 Different Ingredients Bring Different Nutrition

One of the beautiful things about properly formulated raw food is that different ingredients have different jobs.

There isn't one ingredient responsible for providing everything.

The nutritional value comes from bringing the right ingredients together in the right proportions.

🥩 Meat

Meat provides quality animal protein and amino acids, alongside naturally occurring vitamins and minerals.

Protein and amino acids are essential building blocks used throughout the body.

🫀 Organs

Organ meats are naturally nutrient dense and contribute a wide range of important nutrients to the overall recipe.

This is one of the reasons organs aren't simply an "extra" in a properly designed raw diet.

They have a nutritional purpose.

🦴 Bone & Calcium: A Great Example of Natural Nutrition

Calcium is essential for dogs and cats.

It's important for bones and teeth, but calcium also has other important functions within the body, including normal muscle activity.

When people think about calcium, they often immediately think of a calcium supplement.

But nature already provides us with a very familiar source:

Bone.

Bone naturally contains calcium and phosphorus, two minerals that are closely connected in the body.

Calcium combines with phosphorus in bone, while calcium levels within the body are tightly regulated.

But here's the important part:

More calcium isn't necessarily better.

It's not simply a case of adding as much calcium as possible.

The amounts of calcium and phosphorus and their balance in the diet are particularly important during healthy skeletal development.

That's why appropriately included raw bone has a nutritional purpose within a properly balanced raw recipe.

It's another great example of what we mean by food-based nutrition.

Rather than looking at calcium purely as an isolated nutrient that needs to be added from a supplement, we look at how essential minerals can be provided through carefully selected whole-food ingredients as part of the complete recipe.

🥕🍎 What Do Our Pre-Fermented Fruit & Vegetables Provide?

Our animal ingredients are incredibly important, but they're not the whole story.

Somerford recipes also include pre-fermented fruit and vegetables, and they're there for a reason too.

Inspired by the Way Nature Feeds

At Somerford, we like to keep feeding simple and close to nature. Our single-protein recipes use meat, bone and offal from the same animal, inspired by the way a dog in the wild would gain different nutrients from different parts of its prey.

We also pre-ferment our fruit and vegetable blend. This is inspired by the idea of plant matter that has already started to break down within a prey animal’s digestive system, making the plant ingredients softer and more broken down before they reach your dog’s bowl. It’s another way we take inspiration from nature while creating a naturally complete, balanced and nourishing raw meal for the dogs we love.

Fermentation allows microorganisms to act on components of the plant material, changing it before it reaches your pet's bowl.

Our pre-fermented fruit and vegetables contribute plant nutrients and dietary fibre to the overall recipe.

Certain plant fibres can act as prebiotic substrates that are used by beneficial microorganisms within the gut, while fermentation itself produces additional compounds, often described as fermentation metabolites or postbiotics.

Fermented plant foods can therefore contribute:

🌿 Dietary fibre

🥕 Naturally occurring plant nutrients

🦠 Prebiotic components that can support the gut environment

🌱 Beneficial compounds created during fermentation

It's worth making an important distinction here.

Fermented food doesn't automatically mean "probiotic." Whether live microorganisms remain in a fermented ingredient depends on how it has been fermented, processed and stored.

For us, it's another example of ingredients having a purpose.

Meat brings something different to the bowl than organs.

Organs bring something different to bone.

Bone contributes something different to fermented plant ingredients.

And together they're much more meaningful than looking at any one ingredient in isolation.

🐈 Cats Especially Show Us Why Food Matters

Cats aren't simply small dogs.

They have their own unique nutritional requirements, and one of the best examples of this is taurine.

❤️ Why Is Taurine So Important for Cats?

Taurine is an essential nutrient for cats.

Unlike many other animals, cats have a limited ability to produce sufficient taurine themselves. That means they need to obtain it regularly from their diet.

And where is taurine naturally found?

Animal-based proteins.

Taurine is naturally present in animal-based proteins and is important for normal vision, digestion, heart muscle function, immune health, reproduction and healthy development.

It's not an optional nutrient for cats.

Long-term taurine deficiency can lead to serious consequences, including retinal degeneration affecting vision and weakening of the heart muscle associated with dilated cardiomyopathy.

That's why the nutritional makeup of a cat's food matters enormously.

For us, feeding cats isn't simply about looking at a long list of vitamins printed on the back of a packet and assuming that automatically makes something nutritious.

We're looking at the actual ingredients delivering that nutrition.

🥩 Meat and animal tissues providing protein, amino acids and taurine

🫀 Nutrient-rich organs

🦴 Appropriately included bone providing minerals including calcium and phosphorus

💧 Moisture-rich raw food

⚖️ Everything brought together in the appropriate nutritional balance

Taurine is a wonderful example of why animal-based nutrition is so important for cats.

⚖️ Can You Have Too Much of a Good Thing?

Absolutely.

And this is an important point when talking about natural nutrition.

We don't believe it's accurate to claim that naturally occurring vitamins and minerals can never be overdosed simply because they're natural.

The truth is much more interesting, and much more important.

Good nutrition isn't about providing as many vitamins and minerals as possible.

It's about providing the nutrients the animal needs in the appropriate amounts and balance.

Some nutrients can cause problems when consumed in excessive quantities.

Veterinary references document potential toxicity associated with excess amounts of nutrients including calcium, iron, vitamin A and vitamin D.

So when you see a pet food boasting about adding more and more nutrients, remember:

More isn't automatically better. Balanced is better.

Calcium and phosphorus are a perfect example.

Both are essential.

Neither should simply be supplied without considering the other.

Their relationship and overall dietary levels matter, particularly during growth.

Learn more about our ratios here

🐕🐈 A Raw Diet Still Needs to Be Properly Balanced

This is another distinction we think is really important.

Raw doesn't automatically mean balanced.

Putting meat, organs and bone into a bowl doesn't automatically make a nutritionally complete meal.

Each ingredient provides something different, which means the overall recipe and the quantities of those ingredients matter.

That's why the Somerford philosophy isn't simply:

"Put some meat and bone in a bowl because it's natural."

Our approach is about using real ingredients for a nutritional purpose and bringing those ingredients together to create a naturally complete and balanced diet.

There's a big difference.

🧡 Naturally Complete & Balanced, The Somerford Way

At Somerford, our philosophy has always been pretty simple:

Let real food do the heavy lifting.

We carefully bring together raw ingredients to create naturally complete and balanced nutrition, rather than relying on an added synthetic vitamin and mineral premix to form the nutritional foundation of our recipes.

Every ingredient has a reason for being there.

🥩 Meat provides quality animal protein and amino acids

🫀 Organs provide naturally concentrated nutrition

🦴 Bone provides naturally occurring minerals including calcium and phosphorus

🥕 Pre-fermented fruit and vegetables provide fibre, plant nutrients and components that support the gut environment

🐈 Animal-based ingredients provide important nutrients for cats, including taurine

💧 Raw food naturally brings moisture to the bowl

🌿 Whole ingredients bring their own naturally occurring vitamins and minerals

⚖️ The recipe brings those different nutritional elements together in balance

It's not about creating the longest vitamin and mineral list possible.

And it's certainly not about adding more simply for the sake of saying there's more.

It's about asking:

What does each ingredient naturally bring to the bowl, and how can we bring those ingredients together in the right balance?

That's the Somerford approach.

Real ingredients.

Real nutrition.

Every ingredient with a purpose.

And food we're proud to put in the bowls of our own dogs and cats too.

Because when you're feeding a member of your family, we believe what goes into their bowl matters.