Barkin Bistro Pancreatic Support Raw review

This one lands in our Outstanding band, level with the typical raw food. No field we score is stronger than raw, so keeping pace with the middle of it is a real achievement. Named cuts, declared bone and offal shares and a plant list you could read out loud are what earn it. Protein and processing and value both read Outstanding, with transparency Good.

The one figure that sets it apart from the rest of the raw field is energy, at 90 kcal per 100g against 155 for the typical raw food. The low fat declaration is what drives that, and it is what the recipe sets out to do. It is no shortcoming.

Ingredients, as declared: Chicken with bone, Turkey Breast, Chicken Gizzard, Chicken Liver, Chicken Heart, Beef Pancreas, Broccoli, Cabbage, Yarrow, Marshmallow, Licorice, Bilberry, Dandelion Root, Milk Thistle, Fennel. (Contains 10% bone 10% offal)

The meat side is poultry led and unusually lean. Chicken with bone opens the list, turkey breast follows as one of the leanest cuts in any butcher's window, and chicken gizzard, liver and heart cover the organ share. Liver in particular is where the vitamin A, B12, copper and iron in a raw diet largely live, so a small share of it does a lot.

Beef pancreas is the signature ingredient and the reason for the name. It is a gland few recipes bother to include, and its place here is deliberate. That tells you what the recipe is aiming at, even though the label makes no claim about it.

Bone is declared at 10% and offal at 10%, the balance most raw feeders work to. The bone in the chicken supplies the calcium, with no added mineral needed to do it. Nothing is added on top: no vitamin pack, no oil, no supplement blend.

The plant side is small and mostly herbal. Broccoli and cabbage are the only vegetables, and behind them sit yarrow, marshmallow, licorice, bilberry, dandelion root, milk thistle and fennel. These are traditional herb garden ingredients, they carry no printed inclusion levels, and at the tail of a list like this they are best read as seasoning with intent rather than as measured nutrition.

What the analysis does not print is worth noting. Protein comes in at 13.6% and fat at 3.7% with moisture at 76.4%, but there is no fibre or ash figure. That is why this page shows the label as declared and does not convert it to a dry matter basis.

£7.50 a kilo, in 400g and 1kg packs.

Because the food is so light, portions are large. A 15kg adult dog in moderate condition needs about 840 kcal a day on the standard maintenance estimate, using 110 × bodyweight^0.75, and that works out at roughly 938 grams a day, or £7.03.