Brit Care Dog Sustainable Adult Medium Breed review

An Excellent-band food in our scoring, against a typical adult dry food that lands in the Good band. The gap is earned in construction: a named meat doing real work, a declared insect share behind it, and a label that doses its extras rather than name-dropping them. Its transparency pillar reads Outstanding, protein and processing and nutritional balance both read Good, and value tracks the overall at Excellent.

Ingredients, as declared: chicken (36%) (dehydrated chicken, hydrolysed chicken), oats (30%), dehydrated insect (14%), chicken fat, dried apple pulp, natural flavour, brewer's yeast, salmon oil (2%), pea flour, glucosamine (260 mg/kg), fructo-oligosaccharides (200 mg/kg), chondroitin sulphate (200 mg/kg), mannan-oligosaccharides (150 mg/kg), Mojave yucca (150 mg/kg), milk thistle seed (90 mg/kg), β-glucans (50 mg/kg), dried motherwort (50 mg/kg), dried sea buckthorn (50 mg/kg), Lactobacillus helveticus HA - 122 inactivated (15x109 cells/kg).

Chicken at 36% leads the list, but not as fresh meat: the label splits it into dehydrated and hydrolysed chicken. Take the dehydrated portion first. Its water is long gone, so gram for gram it carries more protein than a fresh entry at the same percentage. The hydrolysed portion is chicken protein broken into smaller fragments, a form makers choose for digestibility and flavour. A 36% built this way does more work in the finished kibble than the number alone suggests.

The insect share is why the range carries the word Sustainable. Dehydrated insect at 14% is a genuine protein contribution, and insect meal earns its environmental billing by needing far less land and water than farmed meat does. The label does not name the insect species, which is common practice with this ingredient but worth knowing if you like your labels complete.

Oats at 30% do the binding, and the label names that wholegrain instead of printing an anonymous cereals entry. Oats are also among the gentler grains on digestion. The analysis lands where a well-mannered adult kibble should. Carbohydrate converts to 43.5% of dry matter, a little under the 46.2% typical for adult dry food, with protein at 28.9% and fat at 17.8% on the same basis.

The supplement tail is dosed with unusual discipline. Glucosamine at 260 mg/kg and chondroitin sulphate at 200 mg/kg make a printed joint pair. The gut gets fructo-oligosaccharides at 200 mg/kg, mannan-oligosaccharides at 150 mg/kg and beta-glucans at 50 mg/kg, and an inactivated Lactobacillus culture closes the list. The additive panel prints doses for taurine and L-carnitine. Organic forms are used for the trace minerals, the kind picked for better absorption. Calcium converts to 1.44% of dry matter, comfortable territory for an adult dog.

Salmon oil at 2% is the omega source. It earns its keep for skin and coat, but it does mean the recipe carries fish, which matters if your dog is avoiding it. Milk thistle, motherwort, sea buckthorn and Mojave yucca fill out the herbal tail at trace doses; enjoy them as the label's flourish, because the food stands on its protein and its oats.

Bags come in 1kg, 3kg and 12kg, at £4.40 a kilo.

As a guide, feeding works out at about £0.96 a day for a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition, roughly 219 grams, assuming about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). The label's own guide for a 15kg to 20kg dog is 180 to 220 grams a day.