Essential Foods Essential Contour review

Our scoring lifts this one into the Excellent band, a step clear of the Good band where the general run of adult dry food settles. Transparency reads Outstanding, protein and processing Good, with nutritional balance and value both Excellent. The gap is earned on the simplest of grounds. The fresh chicken and duck at 35% and the dried chicken and duck at 33% together account for most of the recipe, with fish and egg behind them. Estimated carbohydrate is held to 36.1% of dry matter where 46.2% is the norm. Nothing exotic is doing the work; there is simply a lot of animal in the bag.

Ingredients, as declared: Fresh free-range British chicken and free-run welfare assured British country duck (35%), dried chicken and duck (33%), sweet potato, potato, peas, fresh Scottish salmon and trout (5%), whole egg (3%), linseed, lucerne sprout, chicken liver gravy (2%), pea fibre, vitamins, minerals, MOS (mannan oligosaccarides), FOS (fructooligosaccharides), glucosamine, MSM (methylsulfonylmethane), chondroitin, cranberry, acai, bilberry, mulberry, apple, tomato, orange, pear, carrot, spinach, cauliflower, seaweed, marigold, ginseng, decaffeinated green tea, ginger.

The first two entries do the heavy lifting: fresh free-range British chicken and free-run British duck at 35%, then dried chicken and duck at 33%. That second entry is the important one. Water is most of fresh meat until the oven drives it off, while dried meat arrives already concentrated. A third of the bag declared as dried poultry is a serious inclusion by any standard. The analysis agrees, with protein converting to 36.1% of dry matter.

The binding falls to sweet potato, potato and peas. No grain appears on the list. Estimated carbohydrate converts to 36.1% of dry matter, comfortably under the 46.2% typical of an adult dry food. That is what a genuinely meat-forward recipe looks like once the arithmetic is done.

Fresh Scottish salmon and trout at 5% and whole egg at 3% round out the animal side. The fish brings marine omega 3 in the form a dog's body can use directly. Whole egg is a protein few ingredients can better, and behind them whole linseed adds the plant form of omega 3. Chicken liver gravy at 2% is the palatant, liver being both nutrient dense and very hard for a dog to walk past.

Glucosamine, methylsulfonylmethane and chondroitin all appear, the usual trio for ageing joints, though none of them is given a dose and all three sit in the part of the list where inclusions are small. Taurine is the extra that is properly dosed, at 1,500 mg. This amino acid matters most for heart muscle function, and a grain-free recipe is right to put it in on purpose.

The long tail from cranberry and acai down to green tea and ginger is the label's flourish. None of it is unwelcome. Mulberry makes no recipe better, and this one has no need of the help. The trace minerals are the quieter good news. They arrive as chelates bound to amino acids, a form most dogs absorb readily. Each is printed with its dose, at 50 mg of zinc, 50 mg of iron, 35 mg of manganese and 0.96 mg of iodine per kilo. Rosemary extract does the preserving.

£6.75 a kilo. Bag sizes are 2.5kg and 10kg. The 2.5kg also sells as a case of four and the 10kg as a case of two.

Feeding a 15kg adult in moderate condition works out at about 245 grams a day on an assumption of 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate), or £1.66 a day. The maker's own chart asks less than that, 153 grams for the same dog, which a denser recipe allows. Put the food on scales, not in a scoop, and let your dog's waistline pick between the two figures.