Embark on Raw Chunky 80/10/10: Beef review

The four recipes finish together in our Outstanding band. Nothing we score keeps tougher company than raw, and the food in the middle of that category reaches our Outstanding band. Drawing level with it says the fundamentals here are right. Every recipe reads Outstanding for protein and processing and for nutritional balance, with transparency Excellent on the beef and the Cock & Bull and Good on the other two, and value Outstanding throughout.

Ingredients, as declared: 100% UK Beef (80% Beef 10% Bone, 10% Liver)

Eighty parts meat, ten parts bone, ten parts organ is the oldest arithmetic in raw feeding, and it is meant to approximate what a dog would get from a whole carcass. These four hold to it, and the chunky grind gives a dog something to work at, not a smooth paste. Nothing is added to any of them, which is either the whole appeal or the thing to plan around, depending on how you feed.

The bone is the mineral supply. In a recipe with no added calcium there is nothing else to do that job, and ground bone at this share is the traditional answer. None of the four prints a calcium figure to confirm where it lands. The liver is the other load-bearing entry, and for sheer nutrient density nothing else you can put in a bowl comes close, carrying vitamin A, copper, iron and the B vitamins in quantity.

The single-animal claim holds on some labels and not others. The beef is declared as beef throughout, the chicken keeps to chicken, but the turkey takes its liver from chicken and the Cock & Bull pairs chicken with beef by design. That distinction only really counts when a dog is on a strict elimination plan. For everyone else the mixed labels are simply two more options in the rotation.

The analysis reads exactly as a meat-only diet should. Protein converts to between 49.7% and 60.5% of dry matter and carbohydrate to zero across all four, because there is nothing starchy anywhere near these packs. Fat is where they separate, running from 29.3% of dry matter on the chicken up to 79.3% on the beef. That beef figure is high enough to be worth treating as an indication, not a precise reading.

No moisture level is declared on any of the four, so the dry matter conversions work from the 69.6% standard used for raw food. The calorie figures are estimates, not printed values. The crude ash declarations also sit oddly on the beef and the Cock & Bull, at 0.1% against a tenth of the recipe being bone. That is lower than a bone-in raw food would normally read. The ingredients lists are the surer guide on all four.

The purest label of the four, declared as 100% UK beef and split 80% meat, 10% bone and 10% liver. It is by a distance the richest, with fat converting to 79.3% of dry matter and energy at 269 kcal per 100g. Portions run smallest here, and a working dog will get more from it than a couch companion.

Every recipe comes in 1kg packs. Per kilo, the chicken is £4.50, the Cock & Bull and the turkey are both £5.35, and the beef is £6.95.

A 15kg adult dog in moderate condition needs about 840 kcal a day on the standard maintenance estimate (110 × bodyweight^0.75), which puts daily feeding between £2.01 and £2.73 depending on the recipe. The richer packs feed in smaller portions, so a day on the Cock & Bull works out lower than a day on the leaner chicken. Embark's own guide uses a simpler rule of 2% of bodyweight a day, which is 300 grams for the same dog.