Crave Natural Grain Free Adult Dry review

Excellent is the band this one reaches, a step clear of the Good reading a typical adult dry food earns. Protein at 39.1% of dry matter is the single biggest reason. Estimated carbohydrate at 32.4% against the 46.2% typical for a dry food is the second, a genuinely low starch load for a recipe with cereal in it. Nutritional balance and transparency both read Outstanding, value reads Excellent, and protein and processing reads Good. That fits a label that names its lead animal clearly and then falls back on general poultry language further down. Moisture is not declared, so the dry matter figures here assume the 8% a kibble of this build normally carries.

Ingredients, as declared: Natural Chicken (30%): Fresh Chicken (17.5%), Dried Chicken Protein, Barley (20%), Beef Greaves Protein, Dried Whole Peas, Bone Marrow (5%), Dried Beet Pulp, Dried Poultry Meal, Turkey Liver Digest, Pea Starch, Dried Alfalfa, Minerals, Oats (0.5%), Sunflower Oil

Chicken heads the list in two forms. Fresh chicken at 17.5% is mostly water at the point it goes in, and the oven takes that water away. Behind it comes dried chicken protein, a bigger presence in the finished kibble than its spot on the list would tell you. Add beef greaves protein, which is the dense dried protein left once fat has been rendered off meat, and you have the machinery behind a 36% protein declaration.

Bone marrow at 5% is the rarity here. It is the rich fatty tissue from inside the bone, about as palatable as a dog food ingredient gets. It is also a natural source of the same compounds that other makers buy in and add as joint supplements. Printing it at a percentage, when it could have been buried in a flavour claim, is a good sign about how this label was written.

Barley at 20% and oats at 0.5% are the cereals the name says are not there. Taken on their own merits they are decent choices: barley cooks down to something dogs digest easily and brings fibre along with selenium and copper, and oats add more fibre and a spread of micronutrients. The honest caveat is gluten, which barley carries, so a dog avoiding gluten specifically is not served here.

The rest of the plant side is short and readable. Dried whole peas bring fibre and a useful set of nutrients, and pea starch is the refined fraction working purely as a binder. Dried beet pulp supplies gentle fibre for the gut, with dried alfalfa adding a little more. Sunflower supplies the added plant oil, rich in vitamin E and low in saturated fat.

A palatant sits low on the list in the form of turkey liver digest. For nutrient density, little else a dog is offered comes close to liver, so it is a better flavouring than most. Near it, the dried poultry meal is the one entry that names no species. It matters only when you are trying to pin a problem on a particular bird.

The added minerals are all dosed in print: zinc at 57.4 mg, manganese at 20.3 mg, copper at 2.7 mg, selenium at 0.22 mg and iodine at 0.67 mg per kilo. They come as sulphate salts rather than chelates, the ordinary route, and the doses themselves are properly declared rather than hidden behind a phrase.

£4.33 a kilo, sold in a 7kg bag.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition needs about 222 grams a day on an assumed 840 kcal a day. That is the standard maintenance estimate, 110 × bodyweight^0.75, and it comes to £0.96 a day. For the same dog the bag's own guide asks 190 to 210 grams, so the waistline can decide between the two.