Arden Grange Neutered Adult: With fresh chicken & sweet potato review

Our Good band is where this recipe lands, level with the typical adult dry food, and its transparency reads Outstanding, its value Good, with protein and processing and nutritional balance each Average. A printed fresh-and-dried meat split, dosed supplements and a purposeful analysis do the earning; nothing about the result relies on marketing.

Ingredients, as declared: Chicken 40% (fresh chicken 26%, dried chicken 14%), sweet potato 13%, beet pulp, potato, peas 8%, pea fibre, whole linseed, yeast, chicken digest, chicken oil, whole dried egg, dried krill, minerals, fructo-oligosaccharides (prebiotic FOS) 900mg/kg, turmeric 800mg/kg, mannan-oligosaccharides (prebiotic MOS) 400mg/kg, nucleotides, glucosamine 370mg/kg, methylsulfonylmethane (MSM) 370mg/kg, yucca extract, chondroitin sulphate 260mg/kg, dried cranberries 200mg/kg.

Chicken at 40% is declared the useful way, 26% fresh and 14% dried, so you can see how much survives the oven. Fresh chicken loses most of its weight as water during cooking, and the 14% dried share is what holds the finished protein up at 27.7% of dry matter.

The label does not declare moisture, so our dry-matter figures assume the standard 8% for a kibble. On that basis carbohydrate converts to 46.3% of dry matter, a whisker over the 46.2% typical for adult dry food. Sweet potato at 13%, potato and peas at 8% supply it, and the list holds no grain at all.

The weight-control engineering is easy to spot. Fat sits at 12%, fibre at 6.0% adds fullness without adding much energy, and L-carnitine arrives at a substantial 2,500mg/kg, an amino acid derivative with a role in fat metabolism. Taurine is dosed on the label too, a thoughtful touch for the heart in a food likely to be fed long term.

The extras come with numbers attached rather than just names. Prebiotic FOS is at 900mg/kg and MOS at 400mg/kg, turmeric at 800mg/kg and dried cranberries at 200mg/kg, with the joint trio of glucosamine and MSM at 370mg/kg and chondroitin sulphate at 260mg/kg.

The added trace minerals are chelated, the form generally credited with better uptake, with zinc at 90mg/kg, copper at 8mg/kg, manganese at 6mg/kg and iodine at 1.5mg/kg all set out on the label.

£5.83 per kilo, sold in 2kg, 6kg and 14kg bags with 4 x 2kg and 2 x 14kg multipacks.

For a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition that works out at roughly £1.41 a day, or about 241 grams, assuming around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). The bag prints two feeding guides, one running higher than the other; between them they ask 150 to 350 grams across the 10kg to 25kg spread, so let your dog's waistline choose the column.