Beta Adult: With Turkey And Lamb review

The turkey and lamb variety scores in our Good band, which is also where the typical adult dry food sits. The chicken is a step below in our Average band, so read this as the market's midpoint and not a laggard. The chicken reads Average on every pillar, while the turkey and lamb lifts protein and processing and transparency to Good. What holds it there is openness more than anything: the meat is real and declared, but the fats, the digest and much of the carbohydrate arrive without names or percentages, and scores follow labels.

Ingredients, as declared: Turkey meal (22%), Wheat*, Corn*, Lamb meal (7%), Animal fats, Wheat middlings*, Digest, Dried beet pulp, Dried chicory root*1 (1%), Minerals, Dried carrot* (0.07%), Dried spinach* (0.07%), Dried parsley* (0.07%), *Natural ingredients, 1natural prebiotic

The protein arrives as meat meal, chicken at 28% in one variety and turkey at 22% with lamb at 7% in the other. Meal is rendered and dried before it reaches the mixer, which makes it a concentrated protein source, and the declared 26% protein in both varieties is largely its work.

Wheat and maize sit second and third on both lists with wheat middlings behind them, so grain is doing most of the carrying. Carbohydrate converts to an estimated 46.2% of dry matter in the turkey and lamb variety and 47.8% in the chicken, right around the typical figure for adult dry food.

Digest is the flavouring, a processed coating that makes kibble smell like dinner, and the animal fats supply energy. Neither names a species, which is standard practice at this end of the market but is exactly what a sensitive-dog household needs to know.

The gentler touches are real, if small. Dried beet pulp brings stool-friendly fibre and chicory root at 1% acts as a prebiotic. Then there is dried carrot at 0.07%, with spinach and parsley at the same, which is garnish in the most honest sense.

The vitamin and mineral panel is dosed in print, with zinc at 110 mg/kg and iron at 78 mg/kg leading the trace elements. Selenium arrives as sodium selenite rather than the yeast-based form some makers use; it meets the requirement, and that is the fair summary of it.

A two-meat build, turkey meal at 22% with lamb meal at 7%, and no rice or soya in sight. Turkey brings a slightly leaner reputation to the bowl, and this variety declares its moisture at 9%.

The chicken variety comes in 2kg and 14kg bags; the turkey and lamb variety comes in the 14kg only.

The label's feeding guide asks 175 grams a day for a 10kg dog on normal activity and 275 grams for a 20kg dog, with the turkey and lamb asking 280 grams at that second weight. Treat the table as a starting point and the waistline as the referee.