Flourish Adult: Angus Beef review

The four recipes sit together in our Excellent band, a step up from the Good band where the typical adult dry food sits. Beef leads the group with salmon following it, both carried by higher protein and lower carbohydrate than their siblings. Chicken and duck finish a shade behind that pair, the duck held there by the lightest protein figure in the range at 30.4% of dry matter and the heaviest mineral load. Since every recipe shares one skeleton, the differences really do come down to what each animal brings with it.

Ingredients, as declared: 65% Beef (Freshly Prepared Angus Beef (35%), Dried Beef (25%), Beef Fat (5%)), Sweet Potato, Beans, Beet Pulp, Dried Superfood Blend* (Including Carrot, Green Beans, Cauliflower, Tomato, Courgette), Omega 3 Supplement, Minerals, Joint Pack (Glucosamine 178 mg/kg, Methylsulfonylmethane 178 mg/kg, Chondroitin Sulphate 125 mg/kg), Fructooligosaccharides (175 mg/kg), Mannanoligosaccharides (50 mg/kg), Olive Extract (0.01%), *Each equivalent to 4% Fresh Ingredients

The 65% meat headline is unusually well broken down. Every recipe prints the freshly prepared share, the dried share and the accompanying fat or stock as separate figures. Most labels do not bother. Read it carefully though. Before cooking, freshly prepared meat is mostly water. The fat and stock entries carry flavour and energy but no protein. That leaves the dried meat holding the structure up.

Beet pulp behind them handles the fibre, and the base itself is sweet potato and beans. There is no cereal in any of the four recipes and no white potato either, so the carbohydrate all comes from the same two sources whichever animal you pick.

The dried superfood blend is the decoration. Each recipe gets its own set. To the label's credit, it says every item is equivalent to 4% fresh ingredients before drying. That places them a long way down the finished bag. They are pleasant. They are not why the food works.

The two prebiotics carry printed doses: fructooligosaccharides at 175 mg/kg and mannanoligosaccharides at 50 mg/kg. The dog does not digest either one. They feed the large intestine's useful bacteria, and both doses are printed on the bag. Olive extract at 0.01% is a natural antioxidant present at a token level.

One entry on the list hides: the omega 3 supplement. It carries no species and no percentage, which leaves its source open and means no recipe here can honestly be presented as fish free. For the great majority of dogs that is irrelevant. For a dog on a strict exclusion diet, that one line matters most of all.

The trace minerals are sulphates, not chelates, a workmanlike form, and each one is given a figure. Iodine is declared as calcium iodate, joined in the beef recipe by potassium iodide.

The only recipe in the range carrying a joint pack, with glucosamine and methylsulfonylmethane at 178 mg/kg each and chondroitin sulphate at 125 mg/kg. It reads meatiest on paper too, with protein at 41.3% of dry matter and carbohydrate down at 29.9%, and its zinc is dosed far above its siblings at 153 mg.

£4.16 to £5.00 a kilo depending on which recipe you take, all sold in 12 kg bags.

Working from the standard maintenance estimate of about 840 kcal a day for a 15kg adult in moderate condition (110 × bodyweight^0.75), feeding runs between 220 and 226 grams a day. That comes to £0.92 to £1.12. The dog in front of you is the better guide to portion size than the table on the bag.