Farm Food HE Scottish Salmon Oil review

This recipe finishes in our Good band, and it is the base rather than the oil that keeps it from climbing higher. The typical cold-pressed food shares that Good band, built on more meat and less cereal than this one carries. Transparency reads Excellent and protein and processing Good, while nutritional balance reads Average. Three grains come before the animal ingredients, and most of the protein is blood powder and meat meal with no species attached. The salmon oil is a real addition and the printed micronutrient panel beats almost anything at this end of the market, but a finishing touch cannot rewrite the top of a label.

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, 1% Scottish salmon oil, inulin, vitamins and trace elements.

Scottish salmon oil at 1% is the reason this version exists. Long chain omega 3 fats come from marine oils, and no plant source supplies them directly. Naming the country the oil came from is more than most labels do. At 1% it supports the recipe without being its backbone, and the printed percentage is honest about exactly that.

The base is Farm Food's house construction. Released corn, wheat and rice have had their starch opened up before the pellet is formed, so they digest more easily and bind without the high heat of ordinary kibble. Wheat is the one to spot. Of all the grains it is the one most often tied to intolerance in dogs, and this label names it outright with no cereals line to hide behind.

Hemoglobin powder sits high on the list, which is not something you come across often. Dried blood protein is rich in protein and iron, and it lifts the analysis efficiently. The meat meal beneath it names no species. Apart from the beef fat, the animal half of this recipe stays anonymous.

Whey powder adds milk protein, brewer's yeast contributes B vitamins and a complete amino acid profile, and inulin does prebiotic work in the gut. Cold pressed sunflower oil brings vitamin E along with it, while vegetable fibres and lecithin handle the structural side of a pellet formed under pressure without heat.

Energy comes in at 414 kcal per 100g, well above the 351 that is typical for cold-pressed food, so portions run smaller than the bag implies. Protein converts to 26.1% of dry matter with fat at 15.2%, and carbohydrate is estimated at 50.0% against a category typical of 43.2%. Calcium is declared at 1.09% of dry matter, which large breed puppies are well served by.

The additive table is printed dose by dose, running from vitamin A and D3 through the B group to vitamin C, choline, biotin and L-carnitine at 50 mg. Trace elements appear in sulphate and chelated forms together, and the selenium is an organic form. Very few labels at any level publish this much of their fortification.

Bag sizes run 2kg, 4kg, 12kg and 15kg, and the 6 mm mini chunk comes in 2kg, 4kg and 12kg.

To put the portion in context, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition needs about 840 kcal a day on the standard maintenance estimate (110 × bodyweight^0.75). That works out at roughly 203 grams of this pellet. The label's guide for a dog of 20 to 30kg gives 340 to 510 grams a day.