Ava Breed Health Labrador Retriever Dry review

Our reading puts this in the Good band, level with the average bag of adult dry food, and it gets there by being tidy rather than showy. Named chicken leads at 42.0%, and carbohydrate converts to 44.0% of dry matter where 46.2% is the usual figure for the category. The trace minerals are chelated, with each dose printed. The extras a Labrador owner would go looking for are on the label itself. Transparency reads Outstanding and value Good, with protein and processing also Good and nutritional balance Average. That is the honest picture of a food that tells you exactly what it is doing and does it competently.

Ingredients, as declared: Chicken 42.0% (Chicken Meal (21.0%), Chicken (18.8%)), Brown Rice (18.8%), Maize (9.2%), Beet Pulp (6.8%), Flaked Oats (6.4%), Sorghum (6.4%), Chicken Fat (3.0%), Salmon Oil, Brewers Yeast, Chicken Gravy (2.2%), Minerals, Egg, Potassium Chloride, Chicory Root Extract (a source of Prebiotic Fructooligosaccharides (0.2%)), Yeasts (as a source of Beta-glucans and Prebiotic Mannanoligosaccharide) (0.14%), Glucosamine (0.07%), Chondroitin Sulphate (0.055%), Yucca Extract (0.025%), Cranberry Extract (0.018%), Pomegranate Extract (0.009%), Green Tea Extract (0.009%)

Chicken is declared at 42.0% and, helpfully, split in print: 21.0% chicken meal and 18.8% chicken. Fresh chicken is largely water before baking. The dried meal packs more protein into every gram, and most of the protein work in the finished kibble is the meal's. The panel lands at 27.2% protein on a dry matter basis.

The starch side is broader than the front of the bag lets on. Brown rice at 18.8% leads, with maize at 9.2%, flaked oats at 6.4% and sorghum at 6.4% behind it. Oats bring fibre, plus manganese and selenium and a run of B vitamins. Sorghum is a gluten free grain often chosen for dogs prone to intolerance, though both it and maize are plainer starch sources than the rice above them. Beet pulp at 6.8% supplies the fermentable fibre, and carbohydrate works out at 44.0% of dry matter.

The breed thinking lives in the small print. L-carnitine at 300 mg per kilo plays a part in moving fat into the muscle to be burned, which is the usual reason it appears in a food for dogs that gain weight easily. Taurine at 750 mg is an amino acid dogs mostly make for themselves, added here as heart support. Glucosamine at 0.07% and chondroitin sulphate at 0.055% are the joint entries, the pair most often added to foods for big-framed dogs.

Chicory root extract at 0.2% and yeast-derived beta-glucans and mannanoligosaccharide at 0.14% are the prebiotic entries, put there to keep the gut flora fed. Yucca extract at 0.025% is in there mainly to take the edge off garden smells. Cranberry, pomegranate and green tea extracts appear at hundredths of a percent. At that level they are decoration, and the recipe leans on none of them.

The trace minerals are chelated, the form a dog's gut generally takes up more readily. Each one is dosed: zinc at 100 mg, manganese at 25 mg, copper at 10 mg and iodine at 1.59 mg per kilo. Selenium at 0.2 mg comes as selenised yeast, the better absorbed of the two forms pet food is allowed to use. Iron is named as a chelate but printed without an amount, the single gap in an otherwise complete panel.

£4.17 a kilo, sold in a 12kg bag.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition needs about 247 grams a day, assuming around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That works out at £1.03 a day. This label has a bigger dog in mind than that. Its own chart starts at 20kg to 25kg and asks 260 to 310 grams, and it puts a 30kg to 40kg Labrador at 355 to 440 grams.