Awaken Wellness organic chicken and grass-fed beef bone broth powder, shown with the clean freeze-dried powder on a plate

How to Choose the Best Bone Broth in NZ: A Buyer's Guide

Quick bit of honesty before we start: we make bone broth ourselves (Awaken Wellness, formerly Best Bones Broth). We've still written this to genuinely help you choose well, whatever you end up putting in your trolley. Everything below is about reading labels for yourself, so you don't have to take anyone's word for it, including ours.

The short answer

If you want the best bone broth in New Zealand, judge it on four things: how much collagen it actually contains, how it's dried, what's in it besides broth, and where the ingredients come from. Most powders fall down on at least one of these.

The strongest powders are freeze-dried rather than spray-dried, made from grass-fed or free-range animals, and have nothing added to bulk them out. And the collagen, which is the main thing most people are after, should come from the broth itself rather than being tipped in afterwards.

Here's how to tell the difference, with a couple of label tricks that do most of the work for you.

What actually makes a bone broth good

1. Collagen content (and whether it's added or real)

Collagen is the main reason most people drink bone broth. It's what supports gut lining, skin, joints and connective tissue, so the collagen number is the first thing worth checking.

Here's the catch. A genuinely good broth gets its collagen from the bones themselves, slow-simmered until the connective tissue breaks down. Some brands top theirs up by adding hydrolysed collagen powder back in, so the label still shows a respectable number.

There's nothing dangerous about added hydrolysed collagen. But it tells you the collagen isn't all coming from the broth, and paired with the fillers below it can mean a lot less actual bone broth in the pouch than the front label suggests.

There's a second issue with added collagen: you usually can't tell where it came from. Bulk collagen powder is a global commodity, typically processed from bovine hides or fish skins and often imported, and brands aren't required to disclose the source on the label. That's a long way from collagen gently drawn out of a broth made from local, well-raised animals. Real bone broth gives you collagen the way nature packaged it, alongside the gelatin, minerals and other amino acids it naturally comes with.

How to check: read the ingredients. If you see "hydrolysed collagen" or "collagen peptides" listed as a separate ingredient, some of the collagen has been added rather than simmered out of the bones.

2. How it's dried: freeze-dried vs spray-dried

This is the difference most shoppers never hear about, and it's a big one.

  • Spray-drying blasts the broth with high heat to dry it fast, commonly with inlet temperatures around 150 to 200°C. It's cheap and quick, but that level of heat degrades the delicate nutrients you're paying for.
  • Drum-drying and refractance drying are gentler than spray-drying, but they still use heat.
  • Freeze-drying removes the water at below-freezing temperatures, so far more of the original nutrition survives intact. Industry drying research puts nutrient retention from freeze-drying in the 90%-plus range, well above the high-heat methods.

Freeze-drying costs more and takes longer, which is why most powders on the shelf are spray-dried. If a brand doesn't say how it dries its broth, it's usually one of the high-heat methods, and it's a fair question to ask. We go deeper on this in freeze-dried vs spray-dried bone broth.

3. What's in it besides broth (the filler problem)

Pure bone broth powder should be close to one ingredient: bone broth. Yet plenty of powders are bulked out with cheaper bits. Read a few labels and you'll routinely see tapioca starch added in, sometimes hydrolysed collagen to lift the protein number, and savoury or yeast flavourings on top. Every one of those is something other than broth taking up room in the pouch.

How to check: look for fillers like tapioca starch, maltodextrin, "natural flavour," gums and anti-caking agents, and note where they sit in the ingredient list. The higher up the list, the more of it there is. The cleaner the label, the more broth you're actually getting.

4. Sourcing and the "organic" claim

Good broth starts with good animals: grass-fed beef, free-range chicken, no antibiotics or added hormones, and locally raised where possible.

The word "organic" is where a lot of shoppers get caught. Some powders put "organic" front and centre when only one ingredient is actually organic, or when the product carries no certification at all. It reads as organic on the front, but the fine print doesn't back it up.

A brand being straight with you will say "made with certified organic ingredients" rather than implying the whole product is certified, because certifying every step of production is genuinely expensive and not every maker does it.

How to check: read which ingredients are actually organic, not just the word on the front of the pack. If a brand claims to be a fully certified-organic product, it's fair to ask to see the certification.

Pro tips: read the nutrition panel like an expert

The front of the pouch is marketing. The nutrition panel on the back is where the truth is. Two quick checks tell you almost everything.

Check the carbohydrate per 100g (your filler detector)

Real bone broth is protein, not carbohydrate. A pure bone broth powder should have close to zero carbs. So flip the pouch and read the carbohydrate per 100g.

One trick to watch: read the per 100g column, not the per-serve one. A tiny serving size, or a panel for a "made up" cup that's mostly water, makes everything look like less than a gram. Per 100g of the actual powder is the honest comparison, and it's where the filler shows up.

If a powder shows meaningful carbs, that number is essentially the filler. The broth itself can't account for it, so it's coming from added starches like tapioca or maltodextrin. To show how stark this gets: we've seen a popular chicken "bone broth" powder list more than 55 grams of carbohydrate per 100g, over half its weight, while a true bone broth has almost none. That gap is almost entirely added starch. It's the clearest filler signal you'll get without sending it to a lab.

Watch the salt, especially in pastes and concentrates

Some brands, particularly with broth pastes and concentrates, lean on a high salt content as a cheap preservative and to mask thin flavour. Check the sodium per 100g. A big number can mean the product is being held together by salt rather than quality broth, and it matters if you're watching blood pressure or giving it to children.

Powder vs liquid vs frozen: which should you buy?

Type Best for Trade-offs
Powder Everyday use, convenience, travel, adding to meals. Just add hot water. Quality varies hugely depending on drying method and fillers. Buy carefully.
Liquid (fresh) People who want a ready-to-sip or cook-with broth with authentic flavour. Short shelf life, needs the fridge, heavier to store and post.
Frozen Closest to homemade, nutrient-dense. Needs freezer space and thawing.

For most busy households a good freeze-dried powder wins on convenience without giving up much nutrition, as long as it's made properly. A fresh or frozen broth is lovely if you've got the fridge or freezer space and want that homemade feel.

Chicken or beef? How to choose

  • Beef broth powder is surprisingly mild, almost neutral, so it blends into almost anything (even smoothies and coffee) while giving the most collagen.
  • Chicken broth powder has a clean, fresh, natural chicken flavour that suits soups, savoury cooking and a warming mug.

Plenty of households keep both: beef as the near-tasteless everyday collagen booster, chicken for savoury cooking and the kids' meals. For a fuller breakdown, see chicken vs beef bone broth powder.

Full disclosure: where we sit on this checklist

Since we're one of the brands you could buy, it's only fair we hold ourselves to the same checklist rather than just marking everyone else's homework.

Our Awaken Wellness powders are freeze-dried, have no fillers, and are made with certified organic ingredients. The collagen comes from the broth itself, with none added back in (our beef tests at 72% collagen and our chicken at 43%). We make our own powders from source rather than buying in bulk and rebranding.

If another brand ticks all of those boxes, it's a good broth, and you should buy it with confidence. We just think you're better off knowing what to look for, because once you do, the quality ones are easy to spot.

Frequently asked questions

Is bone broth good for gut health?
It's one of the most common reasons people drink it. Bone broth is naturally rich in collagen and the amino acids glycine and glutamine, which are traditionally valued for supporting the gut lining and digestion. It's a food, not a medicine, but it's an easy, whole-food way to support gut health day to day.

Can kids have bone broth?
Yes, and it's one of the most popular uses among families. A scoop of chicken broth powder stirred into soup, pasta sauce or mashed potato is an easy way to add nutrition when a child is unwell or off their food. We cover this in detail in bone broth for kids.

How can I tell if a bone broth powder has fillers?
Read the carbohydrate per 100g on the nutrition panel. Pure bone broth is protein and has almost no carbohydrate, so a high carb number is the clearest sign of added starch fillers like tapioca or maltodextrin. Also scan the ingredients for those starches, gums and "natural flavour," and check the sodium in case salt is doing the preserving.

What does "made with certified organic ingredients" mean?
It means the ingredients used are certified organic, even if the production facility itself isn't certified. It's an honest distinction, and worth being cautious of any brand claiming to be a fully "certified organic" product without certification to show for it.

How do I use bone broth powder?
Add a scoop to hot water for a quick mug, or stir it straight into soups, sauces, stews, risottos and mashed veg to boost protein and collagen. It's shelf-stable, so it keeps in the pantry without refrigeration.

The bottom line

The best bone broth in NZ is the one that's freeze-dried, genuinely high in collagen from the broth itself, free of fillers, and made with good NZ ingredients. Check the label for added hydrolysed collagen, for starchy fillers (the carbs-per-100g trick), and for "organic" claims that only cover one ingredient. Do that, and you'll tell a real broth from a padded-out one in about ten seconds.

If you'd like to see how ours measures up against the same checklist, have a look at our Organic Chicken Bone Broth Powder or browse the full range. And if you find a better one out there, we'd genuinely love to know what it is.

Keep reading

A note on sources

We try to keep our claims grounded. A few references behind the points above:

Bone broth is a food, not a medicine, and is best enjoyed as part of a varied diet.

Written by the team at Awaken Wellness (formerly Best Bones Broth), made in New Zealand with certified organic ingredients.

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