Brit Care Mini Grain Free Adult review

A Good band finish here, matching the typical adult dry food. Concentrated named meat, a below-typical carbohydrate load and a supplement list that mostly prints its doses are what carry it there.

Ingredients, as declared: lamb meat meal (30%), fresh lamb protein (15%), yellow pea, chicken fat (preserved with tocopherols), chickpeas, buckwheat, dried apples, linseed (3%), salmon oil (2%), brewer's yeast, algae (0.5%, Ascophyllum nodosum), hydrolyzed crustacean shells (a source of glucosamine, 260 mg/kg), blueberries (230 mg/kg, source of polyphenols 70 mg/kg & flavonoids 30 mg/kg), cartilage extract (a source of chondroitin, 160 mg/kg), mannan-oligosaccharides (150 mg/kg), herbs & fruits (rosemary, cloves, citrus, curcuma, 150 mg/kg), fructo-oligosaccharides (100 mg/kg), yucca schidigera (100 mg/kg), inulin (90 mg/kg), milk thistle (75 mg/kg), sea buckthorn (75 mg/kg), chamomile (30 mg/kg), cloves (30 mg/kg), sage (25 mg/kg)

Lamb meat meal at 30% leads, and meal is the concentrated form: rendered, dried and carrying its protein without water weight, so a 30% inclusion works harder than the same figure in fresh meat would. Fresh lamb protein at 15% joins it, taking declared lamb to 45% of the recipe across the two entries. Protein converts to 32.2% of dry matter.

For starch the recipe reaches for buckwheat, a clever pick, since a pseudocereal is not a grain and the grain-free promise holds. Yellow pea and chickpeas add pulse protein and fibre, and estimated carbohydrate finishes at 35.7% of dry matter, usefully below the 46.2% dry-food typical.

Lamb exclusivity, though, is not on offer. Energy comes from chicken fat preserved with tocopherols, with salmon oil at 2% adding marine omega 3s. The cartilage extract leaves its species unnamed. Most dogs will never notice. A dog kept to a strict elimination list is the exception.

The detail entries are unusually specific. Blueberries come in at 230 mg/kg with their polyphenols at 70 mg/kg and flavonoids at 30 mg/kg itemised, and the glucosamine source is named as hydrolysed crustacean shells at 260 mg/kg. Algae at 0.5% is Ascophyllum nodosum, a kelp often included for its natural iodine. The herb list from chamomile to sage sits at trace levels, seasoning rather than substance.

Linseed at 3% supports skin and coat from the plant side, and the additive panel runs from taurine at 200 mg to zinc at 100 mg per kilo, each dose printed.

£5.71 a kilo, with bags at 0.4kg, 2kg and 7kg, the smallest a handy trial size.

Day to day, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition would need about 216 grams, costing about £1.24, working from roughly 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). The dogs this food is really for eat far less; the label asks just 105 to 120 grams for an 8kg to 10kg dog.