Bug Bakes Grain Free review

The band this one earns is Good, and the typical cold-pressed food carries the same word, so it is holding its own in a category that scores well as a whole. It sits nearer the middle of that band, some way below the top, and starch is mostly the reason. Carbohydrate converts to 47.8% of dry matter against 43.2% for the typical cold-pressed food, and protein reads 27.2%. Transparency comes out Outstanding, protein and processing and value both Good, with nutritional balance at Average. The novel protein and a list that percentages nearly every entry are what keep it comfortably inside the band.

Ingredients, as declared: Insect 33% (28% meal, 5% oil), Potato 27%, Sweet Potato 8%, Peas 5%, Apple 4%, Carrot 4%, Linseed 4%, Beet Pulp 4%, Vegetable Gravy 4%, Minerals, Vitamins, Brewers Yeast 1%, Seaweed 1%, Blueberry, Prebiotic MOS, Chicory Root Extract, Glucosamine 400mg/kg, Chondroitin 200mg/kg. Insect Protein, Carrots, Apples, Joint Care, Linseed, Blueberries, Seaweed.

Insect protein is the headline and it earns the billing. At 33% of the recipe, split as 28% meal and 5% oil, it is the only animal source in the bag. That makes this a genuinely single protein food for a dog working through an exclusion diet. It is also a protein farmed with a far lighter footprint than beef or lamb, which is what brings a lot of owners to the brand in the first place. The one thing the label leaves out is which insect, worth knowing if you are comparing insect foods against each other.

Cold pressing is the other half of the story. Compression at low temperature does the work here, with no high heat to expand the pellet. In water it falls apart where a baked kibble would puff up, and that is why owners of fast eaters like the format. Pellets also look smaller and denser than a kibble of the same weight, so weigh the first few meals while you get your eye in.

Potato at 27% and sweet potato at 8% do the carrying, with peas at 5% adding a little plant protein and fibre. Carbohydrate converts to 47.8% of dry matter, a step above the 43.2% typical for the format, which is the trade for keeping cereals out of a pressed pellet. Beet pulp at 4% brings gentle fibre and linseed at 4% looks after the omega 3 side.

The last stretch of the list is where the small print lives. Brewers yeast and seaweed sit at 1% each, then blueberry, prebiotic MOS and chicory root extract, and finally glucosamine at 400mg/kg and chondroitin at 200mg/kg. MOS and chicory feed the gut bacteria, not the dog directly. Putting a printed figure against the joint pair is more candour than that pairing usually gets, though commercial glucosamine is generally made from shellfish, so a household avoiding crustaceans should check before ordering.

The vitamins and trace elements are declared properly, and the copper, iron, zinc and manganese are chelated, which is the more available form. No moisture appears on the panel, so the dry matter column runs on the standard assumption for a pressed food. On that basis protein lands at 27.2% with fat at 12.0% and fibre at 5.4%.

£10.00 a kilo. Bags come in 2.5kg, 6kg and 10kg, with a double pack of the 10kg and a 15kg working dog bag alongside them.

For a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition needing about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate), that works out at roughly 237 grams a day, or £2.37.