Flourish Adult: Free Range Chicken 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% Chicken (Freshly Prepared British Free Range Chicken (35%), Dried Chicken (22%), Chicken Fat (6%), Chicken Gravy (2%)), Sweet Potato, Beans, Beet Pulp, Dried Superfood Blend* (Including Ginger, Pomegranate, Kale, Artichoke, Blueberry), Omega 3 Supplement, Minerals, 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.

British free range chicken, 35% freshly prepared with 22% dried, plus 6% chicken fat and 2% chicken gravy. Protein converts to 34.8% of dry matter and calcium to 1.41%, and the blend behind it leans on ginger, pomegranate and kale.

£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.