Edmondson's Adult: Lamb review

Our scoring puts all five varieties in the Good band, level with the typical adult dry food. They finish close together, so no single flavour is carrying the range on the others' behalf. Where they do separate is nutritional balance, with the Angus beef reading Good there and the chicken, the duck, the lamb and the salmon and trout all at Average. That is largely a question of how much protein is left once the water has cooked out of the fresh meat. Transparency reads Outstanding on all five, and protein and processing Good on every bag but the salmon and trout.

Ingredients, as declared: Lamb 50% (contains 30% Freshly Prepared Lamb, 18% Dried Lamb & 2% Lamb Stock), Sweet Potato (23%), Peas, Pea Protein, Potato, Linseed, Beet Pulp, Omega 3 Supplement, Vitamins & Minerals, Vegetable Stock, Mint, Fructooligosaccharides (96 mg/kg), Mannanoligosaccharides (24 mg/kg).

The meat headline is built from two forms of the same animal. Freshly prepared meat runs from 28% to 36% across the five. That is mostly water, and it cooks away, so the dried share behind it at 12% to 21% counts for more in the bag than its position on the list would suggest. The analysis follows suit. Protein converts to between 27.2% and 30.4% of dry matter, and estimated carbohydrate to between 44.0% and 47.8%, against the 46.2% typical for an adult dry food.

Sweet potato is the largest plant entry at between 23% and 26%, with potato and peas behind it. Not one of the five lists carries grain, and there is no wheat or maize either, so the whole range reads grain free without needing to say so twice.

On every label, linseed is the plant end of the omega picture. The seed is a genuine source of omega 3, but in the plant form. A dog converts that to the marine forms slowly, so a coat needs a few weeks to answer, not a few days. An entry called simply omega 3 supplement sits beside it, with no source given. The supplement does real work in the recipe, but an unnamed source is an unnamed source, and this is the one line here that a strict elimination diet cannot rule in or out.

Beet pulp handles the fibre. Every bag also prints the prebiotic doses, fructooligosaccharides at 96 mg/kg and mannanoligosaccharides at 24 mg/kg. Their target is the gut bacteria, not the dog directly, and that is why the quantities look small next to everything else.

The added minerals arrive in their sulphate forms rather than as chelates, dosed in print at 50 mg of zinc, 50 mg of iron, 35 mg of manganese and 1 mg of iodine per kilo. The garnish at the end of each list, whether that is carrot, mint, cranberry, asparagus or a handful of kitchen herbs, sits at flavour level, and none of these recipes is leaning on it.

Lamb at 30% freshly prepared and 18% dried, the fattiest of the five at 14% as fed, and the only variety to put pea protein behind the meat. Mint is its finishing note.

A kilo runs from £5.42 on the chicken and on the salmon and trout, through £5.50 on the beef and £5.83 on the duck, to £5.92 on the lamb. The bags are sold at 2kg, 6kg and 12kg.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition eats between 225 and 234 grams a day here, assuming about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That works out at between £1.24 and £1.38 a day. The label's own table asks 145 to 250 grams for a dog of 10kg to 20kg. Any difference is for the waistline to settle.