Albion Pet Foods Albion Raw Complete Puppy: Complete Beef review

Our Outstanding band holds the beef, while the chicken lands a step below it in Excellent. Raw is the toughest field we score, and the typical raw food for growing dogs sits in that Outstanding band too. The beef stands level with a strong category and the chicken settles just under it. The beef reads Outstanding on protein and processing, nutritional balance and transparency, while the chicken reads Outstanding for nutritional balance and Excellent on the other two.

Ingredients, as declared: Beef 45%, Beef tripe 25%, Beef heart 5%, Beef liver 5%, Butternut squash 10%, Green beans 4%, Red cabbage 3%, Dicalcium phosphate 2%, Multivitamins and minerals 1%

The beef recipe is all beef. Muscle meat at 45%, tripe at 25%, heart at 5% and liver at 5%: every animal ingredient comes from one species. That is unusual, and genuinely useful if you are watching how a young dog responds to a protein. Tripe in particular is a raw feeder's staple, prized for palatability with a fussy young eater.

The chicken recipe is a mixture, whatever the name suggests. Chicken including roughly 10% minced bone leads at 66%, but lamb sits at 10% and the heart at 10% and liver at 5% are listed without an animal attached to them. That is worth knowing before the food is used for elimination purposes, and it makes no difference at all to a dog with no such worries.

Both labels close with dicalcium phosphate and a vitamin and mineral inclusion, and for a puppy food that choice carries weight. Calcium and phosphorus in a bone-in raw recipe depend on how much bone went into the batch, and adding the mineral outright is how a maker steadies that. No calcium figure is printed, so the method is where the reassurance sits.

The plant fraction is small and sensible on both. The beef takes butternut squash at 10% with green beans and red cabbage behind it, while the chicken takes apple and carrot at 3% each with a little spinach. Carrot is a decent source of vitamin A and soluble fibre, and at these inclusions the vegetables are doing fibre work.

The two analyses tell quite different stories. The beef reads rich, with fat converting to 46.3% of dry matter and carbohydrate estimated at nothing at all. The chicken is far leaner at 23.8% fat and carries the higher protein at 51.3% of dry matter. The chicken also declares the higher ash at 15.8% of dry matter, which is the signature of a recipe with real minced bone in it.

Beef muscle meat at 45% and beef tripe at 25%, with beef heart and beef liver at 5% each, so one animal supplies everything. It is the richer of the two by a distance, fat converting to 46.3% of dry matter at 157 kcal per 100g, and its carbohydrate estimate comes out at nothing.

Both recipes are sold frozen in boxes of 12 packs of 454 g. Single boxes are not sent out on their own: the minimum order is 11kg of frozen meat, or 24 packets, which is how Albion keeps a delivery cold.

Albion's own feeding table is written by age, and that suits a growing dog. A 10kg puppy is fed 850g a day from birth to four months, then 550g a day from four to nine months and 450g a day from nine to twelve months. Once fully grown it settles at 250g a day.