Farm Food HE Classic review

Our scoring puts this one in our Good band, exactly level with the typical cold-pressed food. The reasons sit in the first four lines of the ingredients list. Three cereals come ahead of anything animal, the protein arrives largely as blood powder and unnamed meat meal, and carbohydrate converts to half the dry matter. Transparency reads Excellent, with protein and processing Good and nutritional balance Average. That top reading is the label's own openness at work: the vitamin and mineral doses are printed in full where most makers offer a single summarising line.

Ingredients, as declared: released corn, hemoglobin powder, released wheat, released rice, meat meal, beef fat, whey powder, brewer's yeast, vegetable fibers, cold pressed sunflower oil, minerals, lecithin, cold pressed linseed oil, inulin, vitamins and trace elements.

The word released does a lot of work on this label. Farm Food uses it for corn, wheat and rice whose starch has been opened up before the pellet is formed. That makes the grain digest more readily and helps the pellet bind without the high heat ordinary kibble goes through. That is the appeal of cold pressing in the first place, since the pellets crumble in water rather than expanding, a trait owners of fast eaters tend to swear by.

Hemoglobin powder in second place is unusual company for a cold-pressed food. It is dried blood protein, and it is an efficient way to lift the protein figure. No animal at all is named by the meat meal below it. Between those two entries, the species behind most of the protein goes unread.

Beef fat is the only animal ingredient that says where it came from, and it does the palatability job. Whey powder brings milk protein and a little lactose with it. Brewer's yeast is a genuinely useful inclusion. It is a natural source of the whole B group, and the protein it carries is complete. Vegetable fibres, lecithin and inulin finish the base. Inulin is the prebiotic there, and it feeds the bacteria a gut already has.

Both finishing oils are named and both are cold pressed, sunflower oil bringing vitamin E and linseed oil bringing omega 3 fats. Naming them is a step up from the oils and fats entry many labels settle for, and pressing them cold fits the way the pellet is made.

The analysis reads dense. Protein converts to 26.1% of dry matter and fat to 15.2%, while carbohydrate is estimated at 50.0%, above the 43.2% that is typical for cold-pressed food. Energy is 414 kcal per 100g against a category norm of 351, so a scoop of this feeds further than the bag size suggests. Calcium works out at 1.09% of dry matter, which clears the bar a large breed puppy needs.

The additive panel is where the label is at its most generous. Vitamins A, D3, E and K3 arrive with doses attached, and the full B group follows. Then vitamin C, choline, biotin and L-carnitine at 50 mg, an amino acid involved in the way fat is turned into energy. The trace elements come in both sulphate and chelated forms, and selenium is supplied as selenomethionine from yeast rather than as sodium selenite.

Bags come in 2kg, 4kg, 12kg and 15kg, and the 6 mm mini chunk is offered in 2kg, 4kg and 12kg.

For scale, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition needs about 840 kcal a day on the standard maintenance estimate (110 × bodyweight^0.75), which this food covers in roughly 203 grams. Farm Food's own guide for a 20 to 30kg dog runs from 340 to 510 grams a day.