Twenty million CFU per pound. That figure is printed on the back of most Stella & Chewy's freeze-dried bags, and almost nobody reads it. It sits under the guaranteed analysis in small type, with an asterisk.
Here is what it actually is. CFU stands for colony forming units, and it is a count of live microorganisms the manufacturer guarantees are in the food at the time of manufacture. Stella names four of them on the label: Pediococcus acidilactici, Lactobacillus acidophilus, Bifidobacterium longum, and Bacillus coagulans. You will find those four in the ingredient list too, listed as dried fermentation products. The guarantee is the useful part, because an ingredient list only tells you something is present, while a guaranteed minimum tells you how much. Most pet foods that mention probiotics on the front of the bag never print a number anywhere. Stella does, and that is worth something. If you want to see one, come look at a bag with us at 1288 Highway 33 in Farmingdale and we will turn it over and find the line together. It takes ten seconds and you will never un-see it.
Now the honest part.
That same asterisk leads to a footnote stating total microorganisms are not recognized as an essential nutrient by the AAFCO Dog Food Nutrient Profiles. Stella prints that themselves. It means the number is not a required nutrient with an established minimum, the way protein or calcium is. So what you are reading is a manufacturer's voluntary guarantee about something the regulatory profiles do not require at all.
We are not going to tell you what those organisms do inside your dog. That is a question for research and for your veterinarian, not for a pet store blog, and anyone who tells you confidently in a product description is selling rather than explaining.
What we can tell you is that the number changes depending on which Stella product you pick, and the difference is not small. The freeze-dried products carry twenty million CFU per pound. The Raw Blend kibble carries ten million. Half. Both are Stella, both say probiotics on the bag, and only the guaranteed analysis tells you they are not the same.
That pattern shows up all over this brand once you start reading labels instead of front panels. We have spent a fair amount of time this fall comparing Stella bags side by side, and the gaps between recipes in the same line are consistently larger than anyone expects.
Our mild opinion, for whatever it is worth. Probiotic counts get used as a selling point more than they deserve. A number on a bag is a guarantee at manufacture, not a promise about what survives a hot delivery truck in July or a summer in somebody's garage. We would rather you chose a food on protein, fat, calories, and whether your dog will actually eat it, and treated the probiotic line as a tiebreaker. That is roughly how we think about it ourselves.
The broader point is simpler than the chemistry. Guaranteed analysis is the one part of a pet food bag that is held to a standard, and it is printed on every bag in this store regardless of brand. Front panels are marketing. The panel on the back is closer to a contract.
Next time you are holding a bag, find the asterisk and read what it leads to. Most of the interesting information on a pet food label is in the small print nobody puts in an ad.