Essential Foods Essential Estate Living review

In our banding this comes out Excellent, a step up from the Good band that holds the middle of the adult dry shelf. Two named red meats at the head of the list do most of that work, helped by estimated carbohydrate of 37.1% of dry matter where 46.2% is typical for adult dry food. Protein and processing reads Good, nutritional balance the same and transparency Outstanding, so nothing here is carrying the rest.

Ingredients, as declared: Fresh grass-fed British lamb and free-roaming venison (40%), sweet potato, dried lamb (20%), peas, whole eggs (6%), dried free-range chicken (6%), potato, linseed, lamb fat (2%), lucerne sprout, liver stock, 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.

Fresh lamb and venison lead at 40%. Fresh does what fresh always does, and the oven drives off the water that makes up most of that weight. What keeps the meat case honest is the 20% of dried lamb immediately behind, which goes in already concentrated. Protein converts to 32.8% of dry matter and estimated carbohydrate to 37.1%, comfortably under the 46.2% a typical adult dry food carries.

Venison is the unusual half of the headline. It is lean, highly digestible and one of the few meats a British dog is unlikely to have eaten before, which makes it genuinely useful for a dog that has cycled through chicken and beef. The catch is the shared percentage, so the label never says how much of the 40% is deer.

No cereal appears anywhere, and the binding is done by sweet potato, peas and potato. Peas bring fibre and a little protein of their own, though plant protein never quite matches what comes off an animal, so read the headline as meat led rather than pea propped.

The small print is where the brand shows its hand. MOS and FOS are prebiotic sugars, and the useful gut bacteria live on them. Taurine is dosed at 1,500 mg. The trace minerals are chelated to amino acids, with zinc and iron at 50 mg, manganese at 35 mg and iodine at 0.96 mg per kilo. Glucosamine, MSM and chondroitin are all present, though unlike the minerals they turn up without a figure next to them.

Cranberry, acai and bilberry close the list alongside the rest of the botanicals, and they are decoration in trace amounts. The recipe would stand without a single one of them. One figure worth knowing is calcium, which works out at 1.97% of dry matter, a generous mineral load for adult maintenance and the natural consequence of a list this heavy on dried meat.

£6.75 a kilo, in 2.5kg and 10kg bags, with a four pack of the smaller size and a two pack of the larger one also on the shelf.

Portion wise, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition gets through roughly 235 grams a day, working from about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That puts the day at £1.58. The label's own table puts a 15kg dog on 153 grams, so start between the two figures and let the waistline settle it.