Alpha Spirit The Only One Complete: Duck review

Duck and Poultry land in our Outstanding band with Wild Fish just under them in Excellent, well clear of the Good band a typical cold-pressed food occupies. The lift comes from the label itself: named fresh animals fill most of the bag and the carbohydrate ingredient is a single small entry. Protein converts to between 35.7% and 37.5% of dry matter, with the carbohydrate estimate landing near a third of dry matter, comfortably under the 43.2% typical for cold-pressed food.

Ingredients, as declared: 45% fresh duck meat, 20% fresh chicken meat, 20% fresh whole fish (alacha (Sardinella aurita), mackerel (Scomber scombrus), horse mackerel (Trachurus spp.), Sardine (Sardina pilchardus)), 10.5% hydrolyzed starch, 1% eggs, 1% Beta Vulgaris pulp, 1% brewer's yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae), 0.25% pear, 0.25% pineapple, 0.25% chicory, 0.125% banana, 0.125% cumin (Cuminum cyminum), 0.125% oregano (Origanum vulgare), 0.125% anise (Pimpinella anisum), 0.125% turmeric (Curcuma longa), 0.125% fennel (Foeniculum vulgare)

Cold pressing shapes the piece at a much gentler temperature than baking kibble does, and Alpha Spirit has used that to load these recipes with fresh meat. Duck sits at 45%, chicken at 30% ahead of turkey and duck in the Poultry, and whole fish reaches 85% in the Wild Fish. Those are inclusions you would expect to read on a frozen label.

The fish is the same four small oily species across the range, given by name: sardinella, mackerel, horse mackerel and sardine. They go in whole. That matters more than it looks, because there is no added oil anywhere on these labels, so the omega fats arrive with the fish itself. It also means fish is unavoidable here, whichever recipe you pick.

Hydrolysed starch is the binder, and at 9% to 10.5% it is the smallest carbohydrate share you will read on most bagged foods. The label stops short of saying which crop the starch came from. That is the one gap worth registering if you shop strictly on grain avoidance.

The middle of the list is short and sensible. Eggs bring easily used protein, beet pulp brings the gentle fermentable fibre that keeps a stool tidy, and brewer's yeast carries a natural spread of B vitamins. Below that sit pear, pineapple, chicory, banana and the herb tail at fractions of a percent. At that level they are seasoning and aroma.

The declared additive panel is unusually short: iron at 70 mg, glucosamine at 4400 mg and taurine at 3000 mg, with no full vitamin and mineral list printed beside them. At 4400 mg the glucosamine is doing real work for the joints, and taurine is added deliberately on top of what the meat brings. Calcium works out at 1.79% of dry matter across the range, which reads as an adult maintenance level.

Duck leads at 45% and is joined by 20% fresh chicken meat and 20% whole fish, so it is a duck-forward mix and cannot be called duck-only. It is the richest of the three at 371 kcal per 100g, and it carries the highest protein at 37.5% of dry matter. The lowest carbohydrate estimate is here too at 30.4%, so portions run a touch smaller.

All three recipes are £6.29 a kilo, and each comes in a 3kg or a 12kg bag.

Feeding a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition, on the standard maintenance estimate of around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75), comes to about 226 grams of the Duck at £1.42. The Poultry and the Wild Fish come to about 231 grams at £1.45.