Chapel Farm Performance 24 Plus review

This recipe lands in our Good band, exactly where the typical adult dry food also sits, and only nutritional balance reads Average. That is a respectable result for a food in this style, and the transparency is what lifts it clear of its stablemates: a fully itemised list means there is nothing hidden to mark it down.

Ingredients, as declared: Chicken meal (26% chicken), Rice, Maize, Chicken fat, Full fat linseed, Alfalfa, Peas, Yeast, Salmon oil (1%), Salt, Glucosamine (1000mg/kg), Milk thistle, Nettle, Seaweed, Mannan oligosaccharides, Carnitine (125mg/kg), Green lipped mussel, Blackcurrant extract, Carrot, Beetroot and Rosemary (0.3% total herbs).

Chicken meal at 26% leads the list. Meal has no water left in it. That means the 26% carries straight through into protein in the finished kibble. A fresh-meat headline could not promise the same. Chicken fat further down brings flavour and energy from the same bird.

Rice and maize share the starch duties, with peas and alfalfa adding plant protein and fibre behind them. The carbohydrate estimate lands at 43.5%, or 47.8% of dry matter, close to the 46.2% typical of adult dry food.

Everything in the supplement list points at a dog in work. Glucosamine at 1000mg/kg with green lipped mussel supports joints, carnitine at 125mg/kg helps a working body burn fat for fuel, and salmon oil at 1% covers omega 3. Yeast supplies mannan oligosaccharides for the gut, while milk thistle, nettle and seaweed head a botanical tail that seasons the recipe rather than defining it.

The additive panel prints its doses. A good slice of the zinc comes as an amino acid chelate, an easier form for a dog's gut to take up.

£2.02 a kilo, in one 15kg bag size.

For a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition, expect about 236 grams a day at £0.48, based on roughly 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). The label's table runs from 180 to 370 grams for dogs between 10kg and 25kg.