Boost Meatballs: Chicken with Superfoods review

The Chicken is the standout. It reaches our Outstanding band with protein and processing, nutritional balance and transparency all reading Outstanding, and on 22.0% declared protein it is the most concentrated label of the three by a clear margin. The Beef joins it there and the Meat Feast follows a step behind. Some perspective helps: fresh is the strongest company on our scoring, and the typical fresh food itself sits in our Outstanding band. A place in our Excellent band here describes a good bowl in very fast company.

The Beef reads Outstanding on those same three pillars and still finishes just behind the Chicken.

Ingredients, as declared: Chicken (81%, of which Chicken Breast 35.6%, Chicken Mince 27.2%, Chicken Liver 18.2%), Sweet Potato (13%), Minerals, Linseed Oil (1%), Salmon Oil (1%), Dried Chicory Root (as a source of Fructooligosaccharide and Inulin 0.5%), Dried Parsley (0.5%), Spirulina (0.5%), Yeast Products (as a source of Mannan-oligo-saccharide, Beta-glucans and nucleotides, 0.25%), Turmeric Powder 0.05%, Cellulose.

A meatball is fresh food with less water in it. Moisture runs between 58.0% and 60.0% here, low for the format, so every gram carries more, at 188 to 199 kcal per 100g. In practice that means smaller servings and a smaller shelf in the fridge, and it means a dog moving across from trays needs its new portion weighed rather than guessed at.

The meat figures are declared and then broken open. The Beef is 81%, itemised as 51.7% mince, 19.7% tripe and 9.8% liver. The Chicken matches that 81% and splits it into 35.6% breast, 27.2% mince and 18.2% liver, a share of prime breast meat that is rare to see written into a complete food. The Meat Feast takes a different road with 30% pork mince, 27% chicken and 23% beef tripe.

Sweet potato at 13% is the only carbohydrate ingredient on all three labels, and it is a good one. It carries more fibre and vitamin A than an ordinary potato, and it is gentler on blood sugar than its sweetness would suggest. It is the sole plant of any real size in the recipes. That is why the estimated carbohydrate stays contained even at the top of the range, reaching 32.5% of dry matter on the Meat Feast and less on the other two.

Two oils appear on every label at 1% each: linseed for the plant form of omega 3 and salmon oil for the marine form a dog uses directly. Behind them sit dried chicory root at 0.5% for its inulin and yeast products at 0.25% carrying mannan-oligosaccharides, beta-glucans and nucleotides. That is a considered pair of gut ingredients rather than a token sprinkle at the end of a list.

Cellulose deserves a plain word. It is purified plant fibre, indigestible by design, used to add bulk and hold texture without adding calories to the bowl. It does no harm and it does a real job. It is still the one entry across these labels that reads as a processing aid more than a food. Its position at the very end tells you the quantity involved is small.

The Beef recipe alone carries glucosamine at 0.05% and chondroitin sulphate at 0.015%, the standard pairing for cartilage support, each with a figure beside it. Turmeric appears at 0.05% on all three, and the Chicken adds parsley and spirulina at 0.5% each, spirulina being a blue green algae used as a concentrated source of micronutrients.

Chicken at 81%, split into 35.6% breast, 27.2% mince and 18.2% liver, with parsley and spirulina at 0.5% each in support. It declares 22.0% protein as fed, comfortably the highest in the range and 52.4% on a dry matter basis, and it shares our Outstanding band with the Beef.

£8.33 a kilo across all three recipes, sold in 200g packs and 1kg bags with multipacks of both.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition eats between 422 and 447 grams a day, based on about 840 kcal a day from the standard maintenance estimate of 110 × bodyweight^0.75. That works out at about £3.52 a day on the Beef and the Chicken and about £3.72 a day on the Meat Feast.