Bentley's Taste Of The Ocean review

An Excellent banding puts this comfortably clear of the typical adult dry food, which sits in Good. The pillars back it up: transparency reads Outstanding, nutritional balance and value Excellent, protein and processing Good. What holds it below the top band is detail rather than direction: a high ash figure, one vague fish entry and a calcium level that narrows the all-life-stages promise. As an adult food for a dog that loves fish, it is an easy pick to defend.

Ingredients, as declared: Fresh Salmon (31%), Fresh Trout (23%), Sweet Potato (8%), Dehydrated Fish (7.5%), Dehydrated Herring (7%), Dehydrated Salmon (6%), Salmon Oil (5%), Lucerne (3%), Lentils (3%), Peas (2%), Salmon Gravy (1.5%), Dehydrated Egg (1.5%), Dehydrated Carrot (1%), Minerals (0.44%), Dehydrated Seaweed (0.29%), Linseed (0.29%), Aloe Vera (0.15%), Dehydrated Broccoli (0.03%), Dehydrated Cranberry (0.03%), Green Lipped Mussel (0.03%), Dehydrated Spinach (0.03%), Tomato Pomace (0.03%), Yucca Extract (0.03%), Dehydrated Green Beans (0.03%), Chicory (0.03%), Devils Claw (0.03%), Marjoram (0.03%), Oregano (0.03%), Parsley (0.03%), Sage (0.03%), Thyme (0.03%)

Fresh salmon at 31% and fresh trout at 23% open the list. Behind them sit dried herring at 7%, dried salmon at 6% and a generic dried fish at 7.5%. Once the fresh share has lost its water in the oven, those dried entries supply much of the finished protein. The result is a declared protein of 42.5%, converting to 46.2% of dry matter, a genuinely fish-heavy build for a kibble.

Salmon oil at 5% is the fat backbone and brings marine omega 3s with it, with linseed adding plant ones further down. Sweet potato at 8%, lentils at 3% and peas at 2% are nearly all the starch there is. Carbohydrate converts to an estimated 23.3% of dry matter, roughly half the 46.2% typical for adult dry food.

The gut support is unusually concrete for a dry food: a named probiotic strain, Enterococcus faecium, is dosed on the label, and lucerne at 3% adds plant fibre and micronutrients alongside the prebiotic-style vegetables.

Egg at 1.5% is a quiet, high-quality protein helper. It is also why this cannot be called a fish-only recipe for elimination purposes. The same honesty applies to that dehydrated fish at 7.5%, which names no species.

The long tail from seaweed to thyme sits at hundredths of a percent, including the green lipped mussel and devil's claw that gesture towards joints. At 0.03% each they are a wink of a dose, and the recipe stands on its fish, not its herbs. Calcium converts to 2.07% of dry matter, the figure to weigh if a big puppy is doing the growing.

£6.96 a kilo, sold in 1.5kg, 3kg and 13.5kg bags, with a 75g sample size to test the waters first.

The standard maintenance estimate for a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition is 110 × bodyweight^0.75, roughly 840 kcal a day. On that basis expect about 230 grams and £1.60 a day, then let the label's table and your dog's age fine-tune it.