Feedwell Puppy review

How little this label declares is what decides where Feedwell Puppy lands. It sits in our Average band, a step below the typical puppy dry food, which lands in our Good band. Protein and processing is the pillar carrying most of that, reading Poor, while transparency reads Good. The two forces behind it are a maize led recipe with an unnamed meat meal at its heart, and an analysis that stops after fibre and leaves a grower's most important numbers unprinted. None of that says a pup will not do well on it, and plenty have, but it does mean an owner is taking more on trust here than most bags ask.

Ingredients, as declared: Whole maize, meat meal, soya oil, milk powder, whole egg powder, vitamins and minerals

Whole maize opens the list. That tells you the shape of the recipe straight away. Cooked maize is a perfectly digestible source of energy for a dog. A cereal in first place does mean starch is doing more of the work in this bowl than meat is. A growing pup has the least room to spare on that front.

The meat meal behind it is the ingredient with the most riding on it. Meal is rendered and dried down to a concentrated brown powder, and nutritionally it is a solid protein source that has been the backbone of dry dog food for decades. The catch is the naming. A meal can be labelled with its animal, as chicken meal or lamb meal, and this one is not, so the species is left open and cannot be pinned down from the pack.

Soya oil supplies the added fat. Soya has a long standing reputation for turning up in intolerance cases. Keep it in mind if your pup has reacted to foods before. The oil itself carries far less of the plant's protein than soya meal would.

Milk powder and whole egg powder are the two entries a puppy owner should be pleased to see. Both are high quality, highly digestible protein with a good spread of minerals and micronutrients behind them, and both suit a young digestion. They are also why dairy and egg show on the allergen picture.

The analysis gives protein at 26.0%, fat at 10.0% and fibre at 2.0% as fed, and then stops. With no ash and no moisture declared, there is no honest way to convert those into dry matter figures, so they cannot be lined up against foods that print a full panel. Fat at 10.0% is on the lean side for growth. Energy works out at our estimate of 339 kcal per 100g, against the 376 typical of a puppy dry food. Bowls here will be fuller than a richer kibble would need.

The added panel is dosed per kilo. Vitamins A and D are on it, and so is vitamin E. Iron comes at 333 mg, manganese at 80.64 mg, copper at 16 mg, zinc at 14 mg and selenium at 2.2 mg. That zinc figure is strikingly low next to what most growth kibbles add, and the manganese unusually high, a pairing that reads as though the two have been printed the wrong way round. A growing pup needs zinc for skin and coat and for immune function. That is worth asking the maker about before you buy in quantity.

£1.60 a kilo, sold in 2.5kg and 8kg bags, a 5 x 2.5kg multipack, and a 15kg sack carrying the maker's working puppy name.

No single daily amount holds for long with a growing dog, since what a pup eats changes month by month and with the adult size it is heading for. Weigh against the maker's chart and re-check every fortnight or so as the pup fills out. From our energy estimate, a 10kg pup aged four to twelve months would get through in the region of 209 to 256 grams a day.