About IAMS
IAMS traces back to 1946, when self-taught animal nutritionist Paul Iams built the brand on the then-unconventional idea that dogs and cats are primarily carnivores that thrive on diets centered on animal protein. He opened his first manufacturing plant in Dayton, Ohio in 1950, and longtime employee Clay Mathile grew the company from under a million dollars in annual revenue to roughly $900 million before selling it to Procter & Gamble in 1999. In 2014, IAMS moved again, joining Mars Petcare's global portfolio of pet nutrition brands, pairing that founding research pedigree with Mars's manufacturing scale.
The IAMS Proactive Health line we feature is built around real chicken as the first ingredient and formulas that are complete and balanced for their life stage -- the Indoor Weight & Hairball Care recipe is substantiated through AAFCO feeding trials rather than formulation on paper alone, meaning it was actually fed to cats and their health measured over time. IAMS is regularly reviewed by independent outlets including Cats.com and Catster, and its formulas carry some of the largest owner-review bases of any cat food we cover, a reflection of how widely the brand is fed.
Brand website: iams.com
What IAMS makes
IAMS's range runs wider than the products we review. The lines we know best from our own testing are marked with a star:
Proactive Health Adult
everyday complete and balanced dry formulas with real chicken as the first ingredient — featured on House of Mittens
Proactive Health Indoor Weight & Hairball Care
L-carnitine for metabolism support plus a beet-pulp fiber blend for hairball control, built for lower-activity indoor cats — featured on House of Mittens
Proactive Health Healthy Kitten
growth-formula dry kibble with DHA for brain and eye development and added taurine — featured on House of Mittens
Proactive Health Urinary Tract Health
mineral-controlled formula aimed at supporting a healthy urinary tract
Perfect Portions wet cat food
pre-portioned wet cups for adult cats
IAMS dog food
a parallel dry and wet lineup for dogs, built on the same founding nutrition philosophy
Why we recognized IAMS
The House of Mittens Top Brand recognition isn't paid for and can't be applied for. We award it to the brands whose products consistently stand out in our vet-reviewed category guides. IAMS earned it on the strength of the products below, evaluated the same way every product on this site is: assessed against feline-health criteria, used with real cats, and judged on merit.
IAMS products we rated highly
IAMS Proactive Health Dry Cat Food with Real Chicken, Indoor Weight & Hairball Care
One of our top picks in our cat food reviews. It's one of the single best-selling dry cat foods on Amazon by review volume, and that scale of real-world feedback gives unusual confidence in its batch-to-batch consistency. Real chicken leads the ingredient list in a complete and balanced adult formula, and added L-carnitine supports a healthy metabolism, a genuinely useful feature for the indoor cats most prone to weight gain. It carries a 4.8-star average across more than thirty-nine thousand reviews.
Read the 8 Best Cat Foods of 2026 guide → IAMS Proactive Health Indoor Weight Control & Hairball Care Dry Cat Food with Chicken & Turkey
A standout in our indoor-cat coverage. It targets the two problems we see most in house cats directly: L-carnitine-supported calorie control for a lower-activity metabolism, plus a proprietary beet-pulp fiber blend that moves swallowed hair through the gut instead of back up as a hairball. It's substantiated through AAFCO feeding trials rather than formulation alone, with real chicken as the first ingredient, and it holds a 4.8-star average across more than thirty-nine thousand reviews.
Read the 9 Best Dry Cat Foods of 2026 guide →
IAMS Proactive Health Healthy Kitten Chicken Dry Cat Food
One of our top picks in our kitten food reviews. Real farm-raised chicken leads the ingredient list at a genuinely affordable price, and it still carries the Omega-3 DHA a kitten needs for brain and eye development plus added taurine, so the low cost doesn't mean skipping the nutrients that matter during growth. It holds a 4.8-star average across more than twenty thousand reviews.
Read the 10 Best Kitten Foods of 2026 guide →What earned IAMS the recognition
- IAMS Proactive Health formulas are among the products we rated highest across our cat food, dry cat food, and kitten food reviews, each carrying a 4.8-star average across tens of thousands of owner reviews.
- The Indoor Weight & Hairball Care formula is substantiated through AAFCO feeding trials, meaning it was actually fed to cats and their health measured over time rather than formulated on paper alone.
- Every featured IAMS recipe leads with real chicken and is complete and balanced for its life stage, from L-carnitine for indoor cats' metabolism to DHA and taurine for kitten growth.
- The brand traces back to 1946 and animal nutritionist Paul Iams, who built it on the then-novel idea that cats and dogs need diets centered on animal protein, a research-driven approach the company still cites today.
- Now part of Mars Petcare's global pet nutrition portfolio, IAMS pairs that founding research pedigree with the manufacturing scale to keep pricing accessible for multi-cat households.