Benyfit Natural Boneless: Lamb review

All three recipes hold our Outstanding band and they finish level, so nothing separates them beyond the animal on the label. Raw sets the highest bar of any category we score, and the typical adult raw food already carries that band word. Leaving bone out of the recipe and still matching it takes some doing, and it is no technicality. Protein and processing, nutritional balance and transparency read Outstanding on all three, which is what a fully percentaged list of named cuts earns.

Ingredients, as declared: 50% Lamb Trim, 20% Lamb Heart, 10% Lamb Liver, 9% Carrot, 8% Parsnip, 3% Broccoli, Botanicals Including: Flaxseed Oil, Kelp, Turmeric, Celery Seeds, Alfalfa, Nettles, Psyllium Husk, Clivers & Wild Yam.

The build stays consistent: 80% animal in named cuts, with carrot at 9% and parsnip at 8% ahead of broccoli at 3%. What changes from the rest of the Benyfit shelf is that muscle trim and organ meat carry the entire animal share, with no bone entry to be found on any of the three.

Heart is doing serious work here, at 20% or 30% of the recipe depending on the flavour. Heart is a muscle, not a true offal, and it is dense in taurine and B vitamins. It eats like meat, which is part of why these mixes stay so palatable. Liver and kidney follow behind on the Beef and the Turkey, and liver alone on the Lamb, where it takes a generous 10%.

The interesting wrinkle is calcium. Bone is off the list by design, yet the figures land between 2.65% and 3.1% of dry matter across the three, a firmer reading than a boneless recipe would normally give. It is worth a question to Benyfit if you intend to build a whole diet around one of these rather than feeding them alongside a bone source.

There is no added vitamin and mineral panel. A botanical blend stands in for it, named on the label as kelp, flaxseed oil and psyllium husk, then wild yam, clivers, nettles, alfalfa, celery seeds and turmeric. Kelp covers iodine, flaxseed oil the omega 3 fats and psyllium a little soluble fibre, while the herbal tail sits at trace level, so read that part as character rather than as a dose.

These are rich mixes. Fat converts to between 38.1% and 49.4% of dry matter and protein to between 34.8% and 40.2%, which is meat and organ doing all the work with almost nothing starchy behind them. The Beef also declares crude fibre at 10.3% of dry matter, unusually high for a label with so little plant matter on it, so that one figure is best taken with a pinch of salt.

Lamb trim at 50%, lamb heart at 20% and lamb liver at 10%, one species from top to bottom and the only recipe of the three without kidney. Protein converts to 40.2% of dry matter, the highest here, at 163 kcal per 100g.

Per kilo, the Turkey is £5.95, the Beef £6.75 and the Lamb £6.95. All three come in 500g and 1kg packs.

For a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition needing about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate), a day of feeding lands at £2.71 on the Beef. The Turkey is £2.89 and the Lamb £3.58. The Beef is much the densest of the three, and its portions are the smallest.