GAIN Crunchy review

Our bands put this one in Poor territory, two bands under the Good band where the typical adult dry food settles. The packet itself explains why. Nothing is named, so there is no meat and no grain to credit, protein finishes modest once the moisture comes out, and carbohydrate runs above what a dry food usually carries. What a band cannot tell you is how a particular dog gets on, and a great many dogs do perfectly well on plain food built like this.

Ingredients, as declared: Cereals, Meat & animal derivatives, Derivatives of vegetable origin, Oils & fats, Products from the processing of plants.

Cereals is the widest heading the labelling rules allow on the grain side. It stretches across wheat, maize, barley, rice and oats in any combination. The grain in this bag might be a good one or a plain one, and it might be a different one next season. The wording itself gives no way to tell.

Meat and animal derivatives is the matching term on the animal side. In law it takes in the fleshy parts of slaughtered warm-blooded land animals, along with whatever comes off the carcass in processing. It can be honest muscle and organ, or something a good deal plainer. One thing it does settle is that the meat here comes from land animals, since fish falls outside the definition. Oils and fats is left open on its source, so that entry stays a question mark.

The declared analysis is consistent with a cereal-led everyday food: protein 20.0%, fat 9.0%, fibre 3.0% and ash 8.0%. Moisture is not printed, so those conversions assume the usual 8% for a kibble. Protein comes out at 21.7% of dry matter, fat at 9.8% and carbohydrate at an estimated 56.5%, against the 46.2% an adult dry food typically runs.

Ash at 8.7% of dry matter says a reasonable mineral load is in there, though no vitamin or trace mineral dosing is printed alongside the list, so there is nothing on that side to read. Energy comes in at 328 kcal per 100g, a little under the 357 typical of a dry food, which is part of why the portions on the bag look generous.

Taken for what it is, this is a workaday feed with a big following and a very short story. The label asks you to trust the maker rather than to read the recipe, and the whole category it sits in works the same way.

Sold in 9kg, 15kg and 18kg bags.

For a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition, expect roughly 256 grams a day, based on about 840 kcal daily (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). The bag's own table asks 315 grams for a 20kg dog and 430 grams for a 30kg dog. Where the two differ, go by your dog's waistline.