Embark on Raw Guru: Chicken Dinner review

Every pouch in this range earns our Outstanding band, and it does so in a field where the typical food already reaches that band, landing right alongside the middle of it. No category on our scoring asks more than raw, so holding this level across four different animals is the real achievement here. It earns that on one species per recipe, on offal and bone declared separately, and on a moisture figure that is actually printed. All four read Outstanding on every pillar: protein and processing, nutritional balance, transparency and value. Nothing separates them, so the only question left is which animal suits your dog.

Ingredients, as declared: 70% Chicken, 10% Chicken Bone, 10% Chicken Offal (including 5% Liver), 10% Vegetables (Carrot, Broccoli, Swede, Parsnip, Butternut Squash, Nettle, Linseed Meal)

The shape is the same in every pouch: named meat at 70%, bone at 10%, offal at 10% with liver called out separately inside it, and vegetables at 10%. The lamb rearranges that a little to make room for 20% lamb tripe, which is the one recipe that varies the formula. Declaring the offal and naming the liver share inside it is a small courtesy that tells you the organ content is a real inclusion rather than a rounding error.

What sets this range apart is that the whole animal side of each pouch is one species. The bone in the chicken is chicken bone, the offal in the beef is beef offal, and there is no borrowing between labels the way raw ranges so often do. For a dog working through an exclusion trial that is worth a great deal, because a single stray liver from another animal is enough to muddy the result.

The 10% vegetable block is itemised as carrot, broccoli, swede, parsnip, butternut squash, nettle and linseed meal, a proper list and not a catch-all word. Beta carotene and soluble fibre come from the carrot, minerals from the nettle, and the plant form of omega 3 from the linseed meal, milled into a state a dog can actually use. Carbohydrate still reads zero right across the four, because nothing here is starchy.

Every label declares its moisture, between 66.1% and 68.1%, which means the dry matter conversions rest on printed values rather than an assumption. On that basis protein converts to between 47.5% and 52.7% of dry matter and fat to between 37.2% and 42.2%, a properly meat-shaped analysis in every pouch. The calorie figures remain estimates.

Crude ash converts to between 5.3% and 8.6% of dry matter across the four, which is the bone showing up in the analysis. No calcium percentage is printed on any label to confirm the level. The lamb is the recipe with the most going on nutritionally, since tripe carries digestive enzymes and useful bacteria along with a good deal of fat.

Chicken meat at 70% with chicken bone and chicken offal behind it, liver declared at 5%. Its protein converts to 52.7% of dry matter, the highest of the four, and at 162 kcal per 100g it is the lightest pouch, so portions run largest here. A sensible first choice for a dog moving onto raw from a poultry recipe it already knows.

Each recipe comes in a 500g pouch. Per kilo, the chicken is £5.90, the turkey £6.70, the lamb £7.50 and the beef £7.80.

A 15kg adult dog in moderate condition needs about 840 kcal a day on the standard maintenance estimate (110 × bodyweight^0.75), which works out at between £3.06 and £3.99 a day across the range. Portions land close together, from around 488 grams on the turkey to 519 grams on the chicken, so the spread follows the per kilo figure more than the energy density.