FAQs

ilume is made from human-quality meat, delicious vegetables and healthy bone broth. Nothing artificial, and nothing you couldn’t eat yourself.

Think high-quality cuts you’d buy from your butcher. Seasonal veggies you’d find at your local farmer’s market. The food you keep in your pantry and fridge.

All our fresh meat and veg is 100% Australian, sourced from local farmers and growers.

High-quality cuts and fresh veggies are always preferred, so our ingredients change with the seasons. This is so we can serve your dog with the best year-round.

Yes, our meals are complete and balanced when you serve our breakfast and dinner each day.

Designed to go together, they're nutritionally complete and exceed AAFCO requirements for adult dogs.

When you’re researching ilume, you’ll need to read our nutritional panels a little differently.

We serve breakfast and dinner each day - so instead of looking at one meal in isolation (this won’t give you the full picture), we need to combine both.

You'll find a full nutritional breakdown of our meals when you tailor your dog's plan. Or, read this article on our nutritional panels.

Breakfast is your dog’s kickstart: a nutritional powerhouse that’s designed to get your dog going. Just like we take our supplements in the morning, we’ve added vitamins and minerals to exceed AAFCO standards and make sure it’s nutritionally complete for adult dogs.

Dinner is made for the home-cooks: it’s gentle, warm, nutritious and filling for your dog’s most relaxed night. It’s just like cooking for your dog, without any of the fuss.

You can read more about our meals and ingredients here.

Our breakfast bites are made with a nutrient-dense blend of chicken thigh or beef chuck, crushed bone and cartilage. They’re done with turmeric, and with apple & oats. Other ingredients include collagen to help support your dog’s gut health, plus vitamins and minerals to exceed AAFCO standards.

For dinner, it’s chicken breast, turkey breast, or beef topside pieces, wrapped around a nutritious veg-based mousse. Our crispy slaw is made with the same cuts, just air-dried instead with meaty noodles, jerky, carrots, pumpkin and broccoli. It’s all soaked in an ultra-healthy bone broth we spend 18 hours simmering.

You can read more about our meals and ingredients here.

At this stage, no. Our meals are designed to be combined, so you can’t order breakfast or dinner separately. It’s this special combo that makes our food nutritionally complete.

For breakfast, your dog has a choice of beef or chicken. For dinner, it’s chicken, beef or turkey. We’ve also got a fortnightly special your dog might like to try.

And yes, you can absolutely mix it up!

Order beef for breakfast and chicken for dinner. Our meals are made to have similar nutritional profiles, so you can easily swap proteins and try new ones.

Our food is always gently cooked slow-and-low in our state-of-the-art kitchen.

We considered offering a raw food option, but our science team found that raw diets are more likely to be contaminated with bacteria (like Salmonella and E.coli - yikes!).

Off the back of that, we decided that raw dog food diets weren’t for us.

ilume is tailored to your dog. So if your dog has allergies, we take extra special care to adapt our meals and remove any ingredients that you need us to.

We always ask plenty of allergy questions during account set up, and then we only suggest food that won’t interfere with your dog's allergies.

Potential allergens in our meals include animal proteins such as chicken, beef and eggs, and natural grains like oats.

ilume is not grain-free, but we can adjust your ilume meals if your dog prefers a grain-free diet.

Grains get a bad rap, but in moderation they can be very healthy for your dog. It’s best if they’re whole grains from nature that have had minimal processing, so that’s what we include in our meals to support a balanced diet for your dog.

Our macronutrient ratios still favour protein and fats as the major ingredients, but we support this with nutritious carbohydrate sources that sometimes come from grains.

Not just yet. Our adult dog food is created specifically for the needs of adult dogs. That said, puppies reach adulthood at different times, depending on their final adult weight – so we assess each dog individually.

So how can you tell when your dog is ready to ilume? Toy/small dogs are adults at 9 months, medium dogs at 12 months, and large/giant dogs by 18-24 months.

If your dog is younger than this, hang tight. We’re working to serve your pup very soon!

Yes, for sure. But it’s good to be aware that as dogs age, their health needs can be more specific. If your older dog has health concerns, we'd recommend seeking the advice of your vet before changing their diet.

ilume can be suitable for older dogs, and we can provide a specification document with a nutritional analysis of our food to assist your vet in making the decision.

Yes - ilume uses a wide pool of data to assess your dog that goes beyond the conventional size and weight of your dog. We assess each dog as an individual, and deliver the exact nutrition they need.

Yes, absolutely. ilume has a 28-day Total Happiness Guarantee.

We are so sure your dog will love ilume, we let you try it without a worry. If it isn't for you or your dog, simply get in touch with us and we'll give you a refund. If your order included tech, we'll organise to get this back from you too.

Yes, we’re Melbourne born and bred. Our fresh ingredients are sourced locally, our kitchen and HQ are both based in Melbourne, and we’re owned by a private Melbourne family.

No. We’re passionate about keeping your dog’s food clean. You won’t find any ‘E’ numbers in our meals. We use some natural binders when we mix everything together, and a pinch of rosemary for its natural flavouring and antioxidant properties.

It’s up to you. Our system is a full service, and our food and tech are designed to go together.

Our goal is to feed dogs accurately for healthier, longer lives, so we need all parts of the puzzle working together.

However if you’d prefer to order our meals without tech, you can.

Your ilume box features your dog’s first week or fortnight of meals, which includes:

• Your dog's breakfasts and dinners, made up of breakfast bites, crispy rainbow slaw, medallions, bone broth and lactose-free yoghurt.

• A tech box full of intelligence, including your ilume tracker, hub and scales. Plus access to your exclusive ilume app.

Runs, walks, sleeps and much more. Whatever your dog gets up to during the day, the ilume tracker will be with them every step of the way.

Our smart tracker keeps track of your dog's activity and then uses key tracking markers to figure out the ideal amount of food they need.

We gather information over time to work out what your dog’s average activity level is, and whether they need to level up or slow down. The ilume tracker will flag changes, notice patterns and intelligently map your dog's activity to their ideal diet.

Yes, our devices have met safety standards to be worn at all times. We put in the extra work to make sure that our dogs are getting human-grade tech.

You may notice lots of changes!

So far, our ilume dogs have noticed changes to their energy levels, the glossiness of their coat and in nearly all cases, a new lease of life and passion for their food. If your dog is overweight, you'll likely see a drop in weight and a healthier body size.

The biggest benefit of ilume is that you know you’re feeding your dog exactly what they need calorie-wise. Over the long term, this will stop weight gain and ensure your dog stays at a healthy weight for life.

Yes - but don’t stress. We’re here to guide you.

We provide you with an in-app guide on how to transition your dog. Above and beyond, we listen to your insights to shape your dog’s personal transition. So you'll never have to worry about moving your dog to a new diet too quickly.

Using our app, we check in on any changes to your dog’s digestion and general mood, so we can pick up on how they’re going and adjust accordingly.

This is important, as we need to give your dog’s unique microbiome time to adjust, so we don't see things like upset tummies and runny poos.

Read this article to learn more about our personalised transition approach.

Because ilume only uses human-grade ingredients, you can keep the bags in your pantry, and the rest of the items in the fridge or freezer.

No water, no added protein, nada. ilume is nutritionally complete and balanced, and unlike freeze-dried foods that require rehydrating, our meals are fresh and ready to eat.

Currently we deliver to Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane & Adelaide metro areas, but we're working hard to expand to other areas too. Please sign up to hear when we'll be delivering to your neighbourhood.

Yes. You can choose one or two weeks of meals to be delivered as a one-off order, whenever you please. Or, you can set up our meals on auto-delivery every fortnight.

Most of our customers prefer the auto-renew option, to ensure their dogs never run out of food. You can adjust your meals in the app, and pause or cancel this anytime with the click of a button.

Our meals are delivered in refrigerated trucks to ensure your dog's food is kept fresh, from our kitchen to yours.

If you choose our auto-delivery option, you'll receive your dog's meals every 2 weeks on repeat.

If you choose a one-off order, your card will only be charged once. Or if you set up auto-delivery, you’ll be charged every fortnight, in line with your dog’s meals.