Farm Food HE Gluten Free review

This recipe lands in our Good band, and the typical cold-pressed food sits in the same place. Transparency reads Excellent, while protein and processing reads Good and nutritional balance Average. The label explains those softer readings: cereals ahead of the animal ingredients, protein as unnamed meat meal and blood powder, carbohydrate at half the dry matter. The gluten swap is real and the micronutrient panel is unusually detailed, though neither of those is what our scoring weighs most heavily.

Ingredients, as declared: released corn, hemoglobin powder, released sorghum (10%), released rice, meat meal, beef fat, whey powder, brewer's yeast, vegetable fibers, cold pressed sunflower oil, minerals, lecithin, 1% Scottish salmon oil, inulin, vitamins and trace elements.

Sorghum is the swap that gives this recipe its name. It is a grass grain, high in starch and close to maize in its nutrient profile, and it carries no gluten. Foods aimed at dogs prone to intolerance reach for it often. At 10% it is one of only two entries here with a printed percentage, the salmon oil being the other. The amount is there in plain sight.

Released corn still leads and released rice sits behind the meat entries, which is the plain reason gluten free is not the same thing as grain free here. Farm Food's released treatment opens the starch before pressing so it digests properly and the pellet binds, and that treatment is what lets a cold-pressed food lean on cereal at all.

The animal side is where the label goes quiet. Hemoglobin powder, dried blood protein, sits in second place and lifts the protein figure efficiently, while the meat meal below it names no species. Only one animal ingredient says which animal it came from, and that is the beef fat. A strict elimination plan has very little here to work with.

Scottish salmon oil at 1% is the recipe's clearest upgrade, a marine omega 3 source with the origin named rather than left as fish oil. Whey powder adds milk protein, brewer's yeast contributes B vitamins and a full set of essential amino acids, and inulin acts as a prebiotic fibre for the gut. Cold pressed sunflower oil brings vitamin E, while vegetable fibres and lecithin handle structure.

On the analysis, protein converts to 26.1% of dry matter and fat to 15.2%, with carbohydrate estimated at 50.0% against 43.2% typical for the category. At 414 kcal per 100g the pellet is denser than the usual 351, so a scoop goes further than it looks. Calcium comes out at 1.09% of dry matter, comfortably inside what a large breed puppy needs.

Most makers do not match this label's additive table. Vitamins A, D3, E and K3 are printed with their doses, then the whole B group, vitamin C, choline, biotin and L-carnitine at 50 mg. That last one plays a part in turning fat into energy. Manganese, copper and zinc appear in sulphate and chelated forms together, and the selenium is a yeast-derived selenomethionine.

The range is bagged at 2kg, 4kg, 12kg and 15kg, with the mini chunk pressed for small mouths offered in 2kg and 4kg.

As a portion guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition needs roughly 840 kcal a day on the standard maintenance estimate (110 × bodyweight^0.75), which this pellet delivers in about 203 grams. The maker's own chart puts a 20 to 30kg dog on 340 to 510 grams a day.