FAQ

We’re asked all sorts of great questions about our products; we’ve shared some of the most frequent questions and answers below.

If you can’t find the information you’re looking for, our Customer Services team would love to help. Please send us a message.

There are also lots of interesting articles and advice on our blog pages too.

Product Availability

We’re delighted to say you can now buy your favourite products direct from us via our online shop. .

We are very proud to have partnered with DPD to deliver your HiLife orders safely to your front door. We have chosen to work with DPD as our preferred supplier. We believe they offer a reliable and fast service, tracking options which help you to manage, track and receive your orders, and their carbon neutral commitment minimises impact on the environment.

You can also buy our HiLife pet foods in all major supermarkets, high street retailers including Pets at Home and many independent pet stores, and online stores including Amazon, Ocado and Fetch.

If the product you are looking for is not shown on our website or available in your usual retailer, it may have been discontinued, so please contact us for more details.

Product - General

HiLife products are developed for family pets who are in good health and where they have been developed for younger or older members of your fur family, we have adjusted the recipes accordingly to meet the specific dietary requirements.

Each product information page will give you the typical analysis, composition and ingredients, calorie content and feeding guide. You can find these if you scroll down the page.

For pets with specific medical health conditions, we are very sorry, however, we are not permitted to give any specific feeding guidance. We are very happy to help with further recipe details about our products which you or your vet's practice may need for you to decide together if we have a product that is appropriate to feed.

If you do have any questions, please get in touch with our friendly Customer Services team who will do their best to help provide the information you require.

We are very sorry, however, as a pet food company, we are not permitted to offer specific nutritional or feeding advice. We would always recommend you discuss the suitability of particular pet foods with your vet’s practice who will be aware of your pet’s needs. 

If either yourself or your practice have any specific ingredients or recipe questions to help advise suitability, please forward these on to our Customer Service team at info@hilifepet.co.uk and they will do their very best to help.

Product - Specific

It’s all about choice and your dog’s preference.  Some dogs react to having too much or any grain in their diet, making them feel under the weather, whilst to others grains are a great source of slow release energy.  If you have discovered that your dog is sensitive to grain and makes them feel not quite themselves, then our grain free recipes are the ones for you.

However, don’t feel this has to apply to your dog – we offer recipes with wholegrain brown rice which is very easy to digest and can be beneficial for sensitive tummies whilst also being a great source of slow release energy.

Many of our recipes are hand prepared using the finest quality raw ingredients such as whole tuna fish, whole chicken birds which are gently steamed in pouches to help maintain the goodness of the ingredients. The fish and meat are flaked off the bones before they are blended with the vegetables to create our delicious recipes. The ingredients are handled with care and pride during the cooking process to ensure the recipe consistently meets our high standards.

For other products in our range including our FEED ME semi-moist dog food range and our it's only natural recipes in cans for dogs and cats, we work in partnership with our suppliers to source high quality ingredients which are then blended together and cooked as gently as possible to create delicious meals for the nation's pets.

Rest assured we don’t add anything to our recipes that shouldn’t be there. 

Meat naturally contains water, it is part of what makes our recipes appetising and juicy, alongside this we add a sauce, broth or jelly to help protect the meat whilst it is cooking, a little like you do at home. 

In many of our dog recipes beneficial extras are also included such as carrots, peas and sweet potato, whilst in our recipes for our obligate carnivore cat friends, our recipes are created with just meat and fish to allow their bodies to  to gain maximum nutritional benefit. Cats receive very limited nutritional benefit from plant material as their bodies have lost the ability to biologically process it over time, protein is essential for a cat to live a happy and healthy life. 

Complete Dry recipes allow you to feed with confidence in the knowledge that the recipes provide all the goodness and essential nutrients that your pet needs to be happy and healthy. You do not need to feed your pet any additional food, treats or supplements to ensure they are getting all they need to have a nutritionally balanced diet to support overall wellbeing.

We recognise that often our cats and dogs may prefer to eat a complete diet and our complementary wet recipes can offer delicious taste and texture to enhance your pet’s enjoyment. Complementary recipes are created to be fed with a complete diet to ensure your pet’s daily nutritional needs are met. 

By law all pet food labels have to declare their Composition (ingredients) by ingredient name e.g. chicken or by ingredient group e.g. vegetables and their Analytical Constituents (analysis) according to specific legal definitions. 

The term Crude Ash is one of those definitions and it is a measure of the total mineral content in the food.  It represents important minerals such as calcium, sodium, potassium, phosphorus, zinc and iron.

 

Please be assured Ash is NOT an added ingredient in our products.

Our complementary recipes are made with 100% natural ingredients and no artificial additives of any kind so you can trust you are feeding your pets an honest, 100% natural and delicious meal. To ensure a complete diet for your pet, we recommend you also feed a complete diet with our complementary recipes to ensure the daily nutritional needs for your pets are met.

To allow pet food manufacturers to create nutritionally complete diets which ensure your pets receive the daily required amounts of vitamins and minerals, a blend of vitamins and minerals are added to the recipes. Some of the vitamins and minerals humans and pets alike require are not available anywhere in the world in a natural form. You will therefore notice that many brands will state 100% natural* with added essential vitamins and minerals which reassures you the recipe is nutritionally balanced and complete for your pets.

Where we can help to influence the sustainability of our supply chain, we do. We were the first UK pet food manufacturer to sign an agreement with the Earth Island Institute to purchase verified Dolphin Safe tuna. 

Cats are obligate carnivores which means they receive all the goodness and nutrients they require from a diet solely of meat and fish protein. Cats would naturally hunt for their prey in the wild rather than eating the plant life in their environment. Unlike humans, cats are not able to efficiently digest non-animal protein sources, therefore we would recommend you select pet food recipes high in natural animal proteins. Our it’s only natural recipes are hand-prepared with the finest quality meat and fish ingredients, gently steamed to lock in all the delicious flavours. 

We would recommend that you gradually introduce a new food over a period of 7 to 10 days and be guided by your pet's reaction. In the early days, replace a small amount of their current food with the new food increasing the amount as the days pass until you are feeding only the new food. Sudden changes in diets can upset some animals’ stomachs and we all also know that some cats can also be particularly fussy with their food of choice. Our advice is to persevere whilst listening to your pets!

Customer Service

We are sorry to hear you have a problem with our product.  Our Customer Services team will be very happy to help you, if we can please ask you to provide as much information as possible when you complete our form, it will help us to progress your question as effectively as possible. 

Please get in touch via our contact page and our HiLife Sales team will get in touch.

We are proud to source our pet food and treats from the UK, Europe and the Far East.As a family business, we are passionate and committed to offering the very best pet food we can as we feed the nation’s pets. We source our products from a loyal and dedicated network of suppliers, many of whom have worked alongside us for many years, to create the HiLife brand that we love, and you trust.

We are very confident in the ability and commitment of these trusted suppliers to provide safe, nutritious and palatable pet food irrespective of the country of manufacture. To ensure this, all factories producing for HiLife are inspected annually by third party independent auditors to internationally recognised standards and all factories we use fully comply with UK and EU requirements.

Furthermore, our own Technical and Commercial teams also regularly visit our suppliers as we constantly search for new ingredients and innovative new production techniques to allow us to introduce new products to our ranges, whilst maintaining the high standards of product excellence that we all expect.

As a business, we are working hard to try and reduce the amount of materials we use, especially plastic.  Finding the right product packaging is a careful balance between protecting the food and treats inside, maintaining product freshness and doing the best for the environment.  We can confirm that the boxes, paper, jars, lids and cans used for HiLife products are all recyclable & indeed, many of our outer boxes are made from recycled cardboard.

We are currently also introducing clearer labelling to show what is and is not recyclable on our packaging.The pet food industry globally shares the same concern for the environment and desire to make as much packaging recyclable and sustainable, however, all pet food manufacturers face the same challenge as us which is to find a pouch that can allow pet food to be cooked safely in the ovens and which can also be recycled. 

We sincerely share your disappointment that recyclable packaging is not yet available for both human and pet food that is cooked in ovens. We are continually talking to our packaging suppliers, who are at the leading edge globally, to learn of any new technology developments to help to reduce the impact of pet food packaging on the environment. 

A very large amount of pet food is sold in these laminate pouches and we do not believe the material used is significantly different between manufacturers. However, as the technology to recycle laminate pouches is extremely expensive and very few facilities exist globally – we always advise that our pouches are not recyclable so that customers do not put them in the recycle bin in error and contaminate other materials. 

We care deeply about the welfare of animals and we'd love to be able to help every registered charity and event that's assisting them. Sadly, the number of requests we receive for donations has increased to such an extent that we have decided we will focus our support on charities and charity events in our local community. If you are within our local area, please contact us via our website.

We're also proud to say our nominated national charity is Cat Chat. Cat Chat is a web-based registered charity finding new loving homes across the UK and Ireland for 8,000 unwanted and abandoned cats in rescue shelters and vets practices every year. They are a rehoming lifeline for many cats, working to raise the profile of rescued cats and to make adoption the best option.

Covid-19 Update: We are very sad to learn that many local events we have agreed to support are now postponed or cancelled. Could we please ask that once you know when your event is going ahead, get in touch with our Customer Services team c. 4 weeks in advance and we will try our best to help you.

We hope you understand why we can't sponsor every event or charity and we wish you every success.

We do indeed run competitions where you might be able to win a prize for yourselves and your pets - it would be lovely if you would join our community on our social media pages where you will find details of these competitions. We would also love to hear from you with reviews of our products and to see pictures of your very special HiLife cats and dogs!

https://www.facebook.com/hilifecat
https://twitter.com/hilifecat
https://www.instagram.com/hilifecat/

https://www.facebook.com/hilifedog
https://twitter.com/hilifedog
https://www.instagram.com/hilifedog/

Online Store

We are very excited to be able to offer you HiLife products direct from us to your homes and have selected to work with DPD using their next working day delivery service. We aim to dispatch all orders received by 12noon on the same working day, all orders received after this time will be despatched the next working day. Our despatch team are busy packing your orders Monday - Friday with DPD delivering them to your doorstep Monday to Friday also. For locations not classed by DPD as UK mainland, deliveries should be made within 2 to 4 working days wherever possible. For further details, see here. Link to postcode list further down.

We will dispatch single parcels up to the safe weight of 30kg. If your total order weight is greater than 30kg, we will send your order in multiple parcels together on the same working day and you will receive tracking information from DPD. Also, if your order is made up of larger or bulky items which are unable to fit safely in a single parcel and there is a chance they may not reach you in the best condition possible, our despatch team may send it out as multiple parcels.

Covid-19 update:

HiLife and DPD recognise the importance of the health and wellbeing of our customers and employees & as such, DPD have introduced Covid-19 briefings to all their employees and regularly reviewed advice on methods of accepting deliveries to reduce the risk. If you have any instructions you would like the courier to observe, please advise when contacted by DPD.

We would also advise that in the current circumstances, due to the volume of parcels being processed by DPD for all their customers, you may experience delays in your parcels arriving with you and would ask for your patience and understanding. If you feel the delay is unreasonable, we would ask you to contact our Customer Services team who will be happy to help.

At HiLife in partnership with DPD, we are committed to offering you an efficient and professional delivery experience.

We are very pleased to offer free delivery for all mainland-UK orders with a value greater than £35. If you live in the Scottish Highlands, we will offer you free delivery on orders greater than £35 also however, we will ask you to pay the DPD delivery surcharge.

If you choose to place an order below this value, it is important to us that we can offer competitive delivery costs to reflect the service we offer.

Please note that next day delivery applies to orders placed before 12 mid day. Any orders received after 12 mid day will take an additional day for delivery. In addition, any orders placed after Thursday midday will not be delivered until Monday.

Please click here to view our Delivery locations and associated prices.

Delivery charges for non-mainland locations are set by our courier, DPD and are determined by postcode. The list below highlights any addresses classed by DPD to be included within the Scottish Highlands geographical area -

AB31-38, AB41-56, FK17 – 21, G83, HS1 – 9, IM, IV, JE, KA27-28, KW0 – 17, PA20 - 78, PH19 - 99, ZE

Delivery

Our HiLife Customer Services team are very happy to help with any order or delivery queries between the hours of 8.30am and 5pm Monday to Friday. You can call them during these hours on 0345 646 1488 or email them at any time on info@hilifepet.co.uk 

If you have received email or text notifications from DPD on the day of your scheduled delivery, we would ask that you liaise directly with DPD via any of the methods they offer which are communicated in the notifications. We are very sorry that our HiLife team are not able to help once your parcel has reached this stage in the journey to you.

Our delivery days with DPD are Monday – Friday and the deliveries will be made between the hours of 8.30am and 7pm. DPD reserve the right under exceptional circumstances to deliver up to 10pm. If you would like to receive delivery outside these hours, please contact DPD directly and they may be able to assist.

We provide next working day delivery for orders placed before 12noon. For Monday delivery an order would need to be placed Friday before 12 (excluding bank holidays) Otherwise our courier will pick up orders placed over the weekend on Monday (excluding bank holidays)

Around Bank Holidays there will be a delay in delivery, as our deliveries are next working day. Our courier will pick up parcels on the first available working day.

Whilst we try to ensure they arrive together, multiple boxes are picked up by our courier and sometimes are given to different drivers. They should still arrive on the same day, just may be separately.

Yes, you will receive email notifications from DPD once your order has been despatched by our team. DPD offer you the flexibility to amend your delivery details and will guide you through the steps within the emails.

1. Your parcel will be delivered by a tracked DPD courier service.
2. You will receive a notification from DPD via email, SMS or both (depending on what you have provided at time of order) and will advise the delivery date with full tracking information. This notification will be sent once your order has been collected from the HiLife site by DPD.
3. On the day of delivery, you will receive your next notification from DPD which will advise the 1-hour delivery slot the same day.
4. As the customer you can also request to have another notification when the courier driver is 10 minutes away to tell you that you're next. You will also be advised of where you feature in their delivery schedule for the day to help you appreciate the courier’s deliveries on that day.
5. If you are likely to be unable to accept delivery at your address when the driver arrives, whilst the driver is on route you can reschedule your delivery, advise to deliver to a safe place or neighbour. By offering a safe place or an alternative delivery address, you are taking responsibility for the safe storage of your parcel(s). If you advise a safe place or alternative address, you will receive a final email notification to confirm successful delivery with a picture of where your parcel has been left.

Unfortunately, our Customer Services team are not able to liaise with DPD on your behalf on the day of delivery, if you have any questions, please contact DPD via the convenient methods advised in your notifications. 

If there are likely to be delays with your delivery, DPD will send email and text notifications to advise. Please liaise directly with DPD on this occasion using any of the methods they offer.

You will receive two notifications from DPD to advise the day and delivery slot. Link to ‘How does your process work’ question.

Your HiLife order will be delivered to you on the next working day for the majority of mainland UK (when ordered before mid-day Monday to Friday). Orders placed after mid-day will be collected the following working day to start their journey to you. DPD deliver our orders during the working week only therefore, any orders placed after mid-day Friday and over the weekend will be collected and despatched from us on the next working day (i.e. the following Monday).

You don't need to wait in at home to receive your order from us. DPD offer a "safe place" option, so that if you think you may be out when they call, you won't miss your parcel. Simply follow the steps in the DPD email notifications to let them know where DPD can safely leave your parcel. You can also advise to deliver to a neighbour. You will receive an email notification with a picture once the delivery has been successful.

In the case of an unsuccessful delivery you will receive an email or text notification to advise it has not been possible to deliver your order on the first attempt. The courier will try once more, communicating with you in the same way as on the first delivery. If you have two unsuccessful deliveries, DPD will hold the parcel for a further two days awaiting instructions from you. Once we can move without restrictions, you will be offered options to collect from a DPD shop or from a depot, however in the current Covid-19 situation, DPD are only able to offer deliveries. After the two days, the parcel will be returned to HiLife.

We are very sorry your delivery hasn’t arrived with you safely. If you can please contact our Customer Services team with your HiLife order number, they will be happy to help. They have access to the DPD tracking system which shows more detail on parcel location and will be able to investigate on your behalf. 

We are sorry to hear your parcel hasn’t arrived in the condition you would expect, we can only apologise and assume it has unfortunately been damaged in transit. If you feel the products within the parcel are not able to be fed, please contact our Customer Services team on 0345 6461488 or email info@hilifepet.co.uk who will be happy to help.

If you could please take photos of both the outer and inner packaging & be able to share these with our team along with your HiLife order number and your DPD tracking number, it will help us to raise your concerns to DPD and avoid this happening to HiLife customers in the future.

We can only apologise that your order hasn’t arrived in full. We do occasionally run out of certain products and unfortunately, we are not able to fulfil customer orders. Could we please ask you to review your shipping documents which came with your order and if the document doesn’t advise that the product has indeed not been available to despatch, please contact our Customer Services team on 0345 646 1488 or email info@hilifepet.co.uk .

If we have not been able to send an item from your order, we will automatically refund you to the original method of payment for the missing item and you should see the refund within 5 to 10 days, depending on payment method, your bank or financial institution. Unfortunately, this refund period is out of our control. If you do not receive the refund after this time, please do not hesitate to contact our Customer Services team.

We are sorry that you have an item or items missing from your order. We do occasionally run out of certain products and disappointingly, we are not able to fulfil customer orders. Could we please ask you to contact our Customer Services team who will be able to assist you between 8.30am and 5pm on 0345 6461488. If you are not able to call us between these hours, please send an email to the team info@hilifepet.co.uk and they will be able to help you further.

We do understand your concern and thank you for contacting us. To allow us to help you with your query, we would advise you to contact our Customer Services team with your HiLife order number and they will be able to investigate what has happened. If a refund is required, the team will be able to action for you to the original method of payment.

Please note that refunds may take between 5 to 10 working days to be cleared back into your bank account or to your original payment method which is unfortunately beyond our control.

We are very sad to hear that you have changed your mind and no longer wish to receive a parcel from HiLife.  Please contact our Customer Services team on 0345 6461488 who will be able to access your account and review your order status. Subject to where your order is in its journey, we may need to advise alternative options. 

Returns & Refunds

We are very sorry that you have changed your mind about your purchase and wish to return it to us. Products must be returned to us unopened and in the condition you received them from us.

We can organise collection with DPD between Mondays to Fridays or suggest alternative options including a DPD shop location which our Customer Services team will be very happy to discuss with you further within 14 days from the date of delivery. Our Customer Services team can be contacted on 0345 646 1488 Monday to Friday between the hours of 8.30am and 5pm or alternatively, please email info@hilifepet.co.uk stating your order number, query and a convenient time to call you back, if you wish.

If you are contacting us after 14 days, we will ask you to pay the return charges. In this instance, you are at liberty to organise an alternative courier service however, we would reassure you that we believe we are able to offer very competitive rates from DPD.

Unfortunately, we cannot accept returns which are part of a multipack product.

As pet owners ourselves, we know changing your pet’s diet can sometimes be a challenge and not go as we might have hoped. Please refer to our guide to transitioning diets for further advice and help.

If you do think it is still likely to be a no thank you, please contact our Customer Services team who will be happy to help and advise you of your options. We will ask you to pay for the return charges which can either be via our courier, DPD, or you can organise an alternative courier service.

Products that are returned to us must be unopened and in the condition delivered by us.

If you have any other questions concerning your order or delivery, please get in touch with our Customer Services team on 0345 6461488 or email info@hilifepet.co.uk who will be happy to help.

Subscribe & Save

Please see below for answers to all Subscribe & Save queries. If you would like more information on how to manage your HiLife Subscribe & Save Subscription, please see our handy 'How To' guide by clicking here.

The great news is that as a Subscribe & Save customer, you will save 5% across all products. So whether you are a fan of it’s only natural, FEED ME!, Banquet or Perfection, you’ll receive 5% off across the entire HiLife range

There is no cost to being a HiLife Subscribe & Save customer. What’s more, you’ll receive 5% off all products within your subscription!

How long your subscription lasts, is completely up to you… You’re in control! Simply let us know how frequently you would like various products to be delivered, and we will do the rest. Your subscription will continue to run until you pause or cancel it.

When selecting the products for your subscription, you can select how frequently you would like various items delivered to you. You will then receive your products ‘x’ amount of weeks after your initial order, depending on your frequency selection.

You certainly can! All you need to do is sign in to your account and head to ‘Manage Subscriptions’ within your account area. From there, you can adjust the frequency of each product within your subscription.

Absolutely – if you no longer need or want a certain product and would like to cancel that subscription, log in to your account and click on ‘Manage Subscriptions’. Click on the ‘Subscriptions’ header and then select the item you would like to cancel. On the subsequent screen, simply click ‘Cancel Subscription’ and this will cease your subscription for that item.

You absolutely can! All you need to do is head to your account area once logged in, and click on ‘Subscriptions’. This will then show you all of your subscriptions (active & cancelled). Simply navigate to the product you wish to re-activate and click the ‘Re-Activate’ button.

Don’t worry, we can do this for you… simply head to your account area to manage your subscription and select the product you would like. You should see a button which says ‘Order Now’, give that a click and that will tell us that you want these items delivered ASAP. We will take care of the rest.

That is also fine! All you need to do, is to sign in to your account and click on ‘Manage Subscriptions’. Head to the product you would like to delay and simply click on the ‘Skip shipment’ button. You will then skip an order, and your subsequent order will then be delivered at the normal frequency.

If you need to update your credit card details, you can update card details within your account area. Simply sign in, and click on ‘Billing Information’. If you then click on ‘Card on file’ a pop-up will appear where you can then enter your new details which will be utilised for future orders.

Simply login to your account and click on the ‘Addresses’ header within the account area. You will then be presented with a page with a button that reads ‘Add Address’. If you press that, a pop-up will appear where you can then enter your new delivery address.

The payment for your recurring orders are always taken 3 days prior to despatch date. For example, if your order was to be processed by us on the 24th March, ready for delivery on the 25th March, we would take payment on the 21st March.

Sale Items, Promotions and Promotional Codes

All discount codes are entered at the checkout. There is a field to input the code you have, simply enter the code and press apply - this will then activate your discount.

Discount vouchers/codes cannot be used in conjunction with any other voucher, code or promotional offer and only one promotion code/voucher may be used per order.

Unless otherwise stated, promotional codes, discount offers or any other form of discount vouchers cannot be used in conjunction with purchases made through Subscribe & Save.

Unfortunately no, offers cannot be given retrospectively. Please feel free to use on your next order, provided it hasn't expired.

Dependant on the offer some will have a time limit to use and others an expiry date. The offer may also be running on select product(s) only, please check your basket to ensure you have those that qualify.

*We reserve the right to close offers and promotions at any time . An offer may close early, though we will do our best to inform you this is not always possible.

We reserve the right to close offers and promotions at any time . An offer may close early, though we will do our best to inform you this is not always possible.

Still stuck?

If you can't find the answer to your question in the information above, feel free to get in touch with us and we will do our best to assist you further.

Contact us