Edmondson's Adult Large Breed review

Most adult dry food settles in our Good band. This one takes its place there too, and it gets there without any single flourish doing the lifting. Half the recipe is named turkey, the starch load sits below the category norm, and the pillars back that up, with transparency Outstanding and protein and processing, nutritional balance and value all reading Good. That is what a well built everyday kibble looks like when nothing is out of place.

Ingredients, as declared: Turkey 50% (contains 28% Freshly Prepared Turkey, 18% Dried Turkey & 4% Turkey Fat), Sweet Potato (24%), Peas, Potato, Beet Pulp, Pea Protein, Potato Protein, Omega 3 Supplement, Linseed, Vitamins & Minerals, Cranberry, Glucosamine (170mg/kg), Methylsulfonylmethane (170mg/kg), Chondroitin Sulphate (125mg/kg), Fructooligosaccharides (96 mg/kg), Mannanoligosaccharides (24 mg/kg)

The headline is turkey at 50%, and the label breaks that down honestly: 28% freshly prepared turkey, then 18% dried and 4% turkey fat. Water makes up most of the fresh meat and cooks off in the oven, so the dried 18% is the part that survives into the kibble in quantity. Naming the fat as turkey fat is a nicer sight than a generic animal fat, because you know exactly which bird it came from. Protein converts to 30.4% of dry matter and estimated carbohydrate to 42.4%, lighter on starch than the 46.2% typical of an adult dry food.

The main starch is sweet potato at 24%, and behind it come potato and peas, with no grain of any kind on the list. Beet pulp brings the fibre, and cranberry closes things at garnish level.

Pea protein and potato protein are the two entries worth pausing on. Both are by-products of processing the vegetable. Plant proteins do not carry the amino acid balance or the digestibility of meat, so their job here is to lift the protein figure, not to feed the dog the way the turkey does. Seeing two of them together is common enough in grain-free kibble, and it does not spoil the recipe, but it is why the meat percentage matters more than the protein percentage.

Doses are printed for the joint trio: glucosamine and methylsulfonylmethane at 170 mg/kg each, with chondroitin sulphate at 125 mg/kg. Evidence for joint supplements is mixed, not settled. A printed dose is what lets you judge for yourself, and on a food aimed at heavy framed dogs it is a sensible thing to find.

The prebiotics are dosed too, at 96 mg/kg of fructooligosaccharides and 24 mg/kg of mannanoligosaccharides, both feeding gut bacteria rather than the dog. The added minerals come in sulphate form, printed at 50 mg of zinc, 50 mg of iron, 35 mg of manganese, 15 mg of copper and 1 mg of iodine per kilo.

£4.58 a kilo, sold in a single 12kg bag.

A 15kg adult in moderate condition, the standard reference dog, would eat about 229 grams a day here, which comes to £1.05 a day. The sum assumes 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That reference dog sits below anything this label is drawn for. The pack's own chart starts at 15kg to 25kg with 195 to 285 grams, so read the two together and let the waistline decide.