Europa 50/50 Grain Free: Rabbit review

Nine of the ten flavours settle in our Good band, the same stretch the middle of the adult dry-food shelf occupies, with the Angus Beef a step up in our Excellent band. The spread inside the range is narrow and it tracks two things: how much of the declared 50% arrives dried rather than freshly prepared, and how much of the finished kibble ends up as starch. The Angus Beef comes out at the top, with the duck, lamb, pork and turkey just behind it. No flavour here is an afterthought, so choose by the animal your dog thrives on.

Ingredients, as declared: Rabbit & Turkey 50% (including Freshly Prepared Rabbit 30%, Dried Turkey 18.5% & Turkey Gravy 1.5%), Sweet Potato (21.5%), Peas (9.5%), Potato, Beet Pulp, Linseed, Omega 3 Supplement, Minerals, Blackberry (0.22%), Fructooligosaccharides (FOS, 95 mg/kg), Mannanoligosaccharides (MOS, 25 mg/kg)

On every label the 50% headline is broken into three parts: the freshly prepared meat, the dried meat and a stock or gravy. That openness is worth more than the number itself. Freshly prepared meat runs from 26% to 36% depending on the flavour, though the oven drives off most of that as water. So the dried share, between 12% and 20%, puts more protein in the bowl than you would guess from where it sits. The analysis follows sensibly, with protein converting to between 27.2% and 31.5% of dry matter.

The plant side barely moves between flavours: sweet potato at 21.5% to 27%, peas at 6% to 9.5%, potato behind them and beet pulp for fibre. No grain appears in any recipe. Estimated carbohydrate lands between 41.4% and 48.8% of dry matter against 46.2% for the typical adult dry food. The stronger flavours are genuinely leaner on starch, while the fishier ones sit around the usual mark.

Linseed appears in every bag as the plant omega source. The fish recipes add their own marine oils: trout oil at 4.5% in the haddock, salmon oil at 3% in the tuna and 2.5% in the venison. Olive and sunflower oil join the haddock list as well. The land recipes lean on linseed plus an omega 3 supplement whose source the label leaves open.

The label puts a printed dose on both prebiotics: fructooligosaccharides at 96 mg/kg and mannanoligosaccharides at 24 mg/kg. Both are there to feed the gut bacteria that keep digestion even. Beet pulp does the fibre work alongside them, and fibre converts to between 3.3% and 5.4% of dry matter across the range.

Where a label prints its additive panel, vitamin E arrives at 95 IU with zinc and iron at 50 mg/kg, manganese at 35 mg/kg, copper at 15 mg/kg and iodine at 1 mg/kg. The minerals come in sulphate form and not as chelates. That is the workaday choice and it does the job without flourish. Selenium comes as sodium selenite where it is declared at all.

The fruit and vegetable flourishes at the end of each list, carrot in the beef at 0.1%, apple in the pork at 0.7%, blackberry in the rabbit at 0.22%, are there as seasoning. Nothing rests on them. The meat share is what each recipe stands on, and that is exactly where the weight should sit.

Rabbit and turkey together make the 50%, from 30% freshly prepared rabbit, 18.5% dried turkey and 1.5% turkey gravy, so this is a rabbit-led recipe with turkey alongside. It is the lightest recipe in the range at 11% fat and 339 kcal per 100g, with blackberry at 0.22% to round it off, and it comes out in our Good band.

The lamb is £4.05 a kilo and most of the rest £5.00, with the pork and rabbit at £4.87. Bags are 12kg or 15kg depending on the flavour, and the duck is also listed in a 2kg bag.

As a guide, work from a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition needing about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That lands between £0.94 and £1.21 a day depending on which animal you feed. The label tables ask 145 to 320 grams a day for dogs between 10kg and 20kg. Where the two figures disagree, go by your dog's waistline.