So I recently did some research on this as I got a dog a couple years ago. I found a dog forum with a food sub group where one woman in particular grades dog food to an insane level. She removes any food that has ever had a recall and not only goes over all the ingredients she actually contacts manufacturers to verify that their ingredients are actually sourced in the USA. So I know anything on her list is high quality stuff.
Now also it's mostly pretty costly especially since I was coming from feeding my old dog pedigree which I know now is crap. However there's a thing with dog food (which was touched on earlier in this thread) where because some foods have so much filler in them you have to feed the dog more in order to get the appropriate amount of calories.
So I was directed to a website that allows you to enter in info off the dog food bag & your dog's weight & some other info & it tells you how much you need to feed of a given type of food & if you have pricing on the food a cost per day to feed. So I took the time to look up every item on her acceptable list run it through the calculator & enter into a spreadsheet to sort the cost per day given the varying amounts of food you need to feed.
Granted these numbers were pulled about 2 years ago but it should be pretty close. But the real eye opening thing was I ran it through with Pro Plan (which is apparently not a lot better than Pedigree) & the cost difference to the low end items on her list wasn't much at all. Here's the spreadsheet & the link to the food calculator if anyone wants to run what they're using to compare. Also just FYI my numbers were run for a 60 lb dog.
Just since it's the point of the thread I ended up choosing a brand called Earthborn Hollistic I use the "primitive natural" version which has an amazing protein level, as it was relatively cheap, high quality and available at a local store.
https://goldendoodles.com/care/food_calculator.htm