Edgard & Cooper Adult Plant-Based Dry: Carrot & Courgette review

Both recipes come out in our Average band. The typical adult dry food sits a band above that, in Good, and the reason for the gap deserves stating openly. Our scoring is built around named animal ingredients and the quality of protein they bring, so a recipe that contains none of them cannot collect those points however thoughtfully it is made. On its own terms this is a careful piece of work. The vegetable block is itemised to the last percentage and the protein is declared at 25%. The supplement panel covers the nutrients a meat free bowl has to supply another way. Taurine and vitamin B12 are among them. If meat free is your brief, the band is a fact about our scale rather than a verdict on this food.

Ingredients, as declared: vegetables* 20% (carrot* 4%, courgette* 4%, potato* 4%, swede*, celery*, parsnip*, beans*, peas* 1%), rice* 17.3%, rice protein 9%, pea protein* 9%, rapeseed oil* 5.7%, potato protein 4.5%, minerals*, pea starch* 3.5%, vegetarian gravy*, potatoes* (dried) 3%, peas* (dried) 3%, sunflower seed*, yeasts* (dried) 3%, beet pulp* (dried), lucerne* (dried), lentils* (dried), linseed* 1.8%, lignocellulose*, algae* (dried) 0.25%, chicory* (dried) 0.12%, pear* (dried) 0.1%, blueberries* (dried) 0.05%, elderberries* (dried), marjoram* (dried)

The vegetable block leads both labels at 20% and every part of it is named, which is unusual and welcome. In the Beetroot and Pumpkin recipe that means pumpkin, beetroot and potato at 4% each, then swede, parsnip at 2%, kale, beans and peas. Vegetables listed this way cannot quietly change from batch to batch, and the reader knows exactly what is being counted.

Protein is where a meat free recipe has to work hardest. All three protein entries, from rice, pea and potato, are concentrates. A dog takes up plant protein less well than meat protein, so the declared 25% is not quite the same 25% you would read on a meat led label. What the recipe does in answer is spread the sources, so that between rice, pea and potato the amino acid profile is filled in from several directions.

Rapeseed oil at 5.5% and linseed at 1.8% carry the fats. Linseed is the plant kingdom's best known omega 3 source, though it supplies the shorter chain form that a dog converts slowly into the versions that skin and coat actually use. Dried algae at 0.25% is the interesting addition, since algae is where fish get their marine omegas from in the first place, making it the obvious answer for a bowl with no fish in it.

Dried beet pulp and dried yeasts do the fibre work alongside dried chicory at 0.12%. The chicory root brings inulin, food for the useful bacteria that live in the large intestine. Crude fibre is declared at 4%, a little above what a meat led kibble usually carries. A recipe built on vegetables and pulses will do that.

The supplement panel is the part to read closely on any meat free food, and this one is generous. Taurine is dosed at 2000 mg per kilo, an amino acid ordinarily supplied by meat and fish and one linked to heart health. Vitamin B12 at 300 mcg is another nutrient that normally arrives with animal ingredients. Vitamin E at 600 mg and vitamin C at 175 mg join the minerals. Zinc runs at 120 mg, iron at 75 mg, manganese at 12 mg, copper at 5.5 mg, iodine at 3.5 mg and selenium at 0.25 mg, the last as sodium selenite.

The finished analysis reads much like a mainstream kibble. Protein is 27.2% of dry matter, fat 13.0% and carbohydrate an estimated 46.8%, against 46.2% typical for adult dry food, with energy at 355 kcal per 100g. Because moisture is not declared, those dry matter figures assume the 8% a dry food usually holds.

Carrot and courgette at 4% each open the vegetable block here, with celery joining the swede and parsnip. The protein load is spread more evenly here, with rice protein and pea protein at 9% each, and lignocellulose appears as an extra fibre source. Dried pear at 0.1% is the small flourish at the end of the list, and this is the recipe that also comes in the smallest bag.

£7.57 a kilo. Beetroot and Pumpkin comes in a two and a half kilo bag and a 7kg, and Carrot and Courgette adds a 1kg.

A 15kg adult dog in moderate condition eats around 237 grams a day, which comes to £1.79. The standard maintenance sum, 110 × bodyweight^0.75, puts a dog that size near 840 kcal a day. The label's guide asks 204 to 253 grams for a dog between 15kg and 20kg.