Edgard & Cooper Grain Free Adult Dry: Grass-fed Lamb review

All five varieties share a single recipe skeleton, so it is no surprise that they land together in our Good band. That is where the typical adult dry food sits too. The 40% fresh meat and a fully named ingredients list carry them up. The plant proteins standing behind that meat, and a starch share only a little under the category average, are what keep them from climbing higher. Transparency reads Outstanding on every one of the five, and that is the part a label reader feels straight away.

Ingredients, as declared: fresh lamb* 40%, sweet potato* (dried) 12.3%, potatoes* (dried), peas* (dried), pea protein*, potato protein, sunflower oil*, minerals*, linseed* 2%, beet pulp* (dried), lamb gravy, tomato pomace*, yeasts* (dried) 1%, salmon oil* 1%, chicory* (dried) 0.5%, pumpkin* (dried) 0.2%, kale* (dried) 0.2%, blueberries* (dried) 0.05%, apple* (dried) 0.05%, parsley* (dried) 0.02%, rosehip* (dried) 0.02%, glucosamine 0.02%, chondroitin sulphate* 0.02%. *Natural

Fresh meat at 40% opens every label, and fresh means weighed before cooking, when most of that weight is still water. Nothing dried and animal stands behind it to make the difference up, so pea protein and potato protein are doing real work in the finished protein figure of 27.2% of dry matter. None of that is cause for worry. The meat is genuine and named, and it simply shrinks in the oven the way all fresh meat does.

On the plant side, dried sweet potato comes first at between 12.3% and 13.5% depending on the variety, with dried potatoes and dried peas behind it. There is no grain anywhere, but this is still a starch carried recipe, with carbohydrate estimated between 43.6% and 44.7% of dry matter against the 46.2% typical of adult dry food. Sweet potato is the gentler of the two starches and the one doing most of the carrying.

Linseed at 2% is on every label as the plant omega 3 source, with salmon oil supplying the marine kind. The doses vary in a way that makes sense once you look at them. Salmon oil runs at 2% in the duck and the venison recipes, 1% in the lamb, 0.4% in the chicken and only 0.1% in the salmon recipe. That last one hardly needs it, given what is already at the top of the list.

Both glucosamine and chondroitin sulphate are declared at 0.02%, and the label deserves credit for printing them at all. At that level they are a gentle nudge and not a joint programme. They are a sensible extra on an everyday adult food, and a stiff dog will want more than this on top.

The small print is where this brand enjoys itself: tomato pomace, dried yeasts, dried chicory at 0.5%, then pumpkin and kale at 0.2%, blueberries and apple at 0.05%, with parsley and rosehip at 0.02%. Chicory supplies inulin as a prebiotic and the dried yeasts sit in the same territory, while the fruit and greens are seasoning. None of it changes the meal, and the printed percentages say as much.

The supplement panel is consistent across the range, with taurine at 1000 mg, vitamin E at 600 mg and vitamin C at 175 mg per kilo. Zinc runs at 120 mg, iron at 75 mg, manganese at 12 mg, copper at 5.5 mg and iodine at 3.5 mg. Sulphates are the form the trace minerals take here, and a dog absorbs them slightly less well than a chelate. Selenium comes as sodium selenite at 0.25 mg.

Fresh lamb at 40% with lamb gravy, sunflower oil high on the list and salmon oil at 1%. Lamb is a red meat with a stronger smell and a richer taste than the birds. Reach for this one when a dog has eaten poultry all their life and started leaving half the bowl.

£6.08 a kilo across the whole range. Bags run to two and a half kilos, 7kg and 12kg on every flavour. Smaller sizes are added on most, down to 1kg and a seven hundred gram bag on Free-run Chicken, Grass-fed Lamb and Norwegian Salmon.

For a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition, feeding lands between £1.36 and £1.38 a day depending on the flavour, on portions of roughly 224 to 227 grams. The daily energy need is estimated at about 840 kcal from 110 × bodyweight^0.75. The label's guide asks 173 to 217 grams for a dog between 15kg and 20kg, so trust your hands on your dog's ribs over either table.