Gentle Iberico review

A Good band reading is where the arithmetic leaves it, in the same band as the typical cold-pressed food. Pork at 30% is a proper inclusion, and the label puts percentages on the meat, the vegetable mixture and the herbs, plus a full dose list for the vitamins and minerals. Transparency reads Good on that basis. Protein and processing and nutritional balance both read Average, and that is what pulls the total down, since a third of the label is potato and vegetables and carbohydrate converts to 52.1% of dry matter. For a dog that needs a fresh meat and no grain, that is a fair trade rather than a shortcoming.

Ingredients, as declared: Iberico pig meat, dried and ground 30%, Potato flakes, Vegetable mixture - dried and ground (peas, beet root, carrots, chicory) 20%, Beta vulgaris, Rapeseed oil, Hemp oil, Apple dried and ground, Redcurrant dried and ground, Sea algae (Ascophyllum nodosum), Cod oil, Herbs - dried and ground (stinging nettles, horsetail, dandelion) 2%, Linseeds, Moor (mineral clay)

Iberico pig meat at 30% is the sort of entry you rarely see spelled out. Iberico pigs are a Spanish breed prized for well marbled meat, and naming the breed rather than writing pork tells you the maker knows where it came from. Pork is also one of the less used meats in dog food, which is precisely why it earns a place in the rotation of a dog that reacts to the common ones.

Potato flakes take second place. The vegetable mixture at 20% is broken out into peas, beet root, carrots and chicory. That is more detail than a grouped entry usually gives. Of the four, chicory is the one worth pausing on. Its root carries plenty of inulin, and inulin is a soluble fibre the gut's useful bacteria feed on. Beta vulgaris appears separately as another beet entry.

Wheat, rice and maize are all absent from this list, and so is every other cereal. That is the reason a grain-free household can use it, and the reason carbohydrate converts to 52.1% of dry matter, because potato and peas have to do everything a cereal would otherwise do. Fibre is modest at 3.6% of dry matter, so this is a gentle recipe and not a bulky one.

The oils are worth a look. Rapeseed oil is a well balanced everyday fat and low in saturates. Hemp oil brings its own omega profile, while cod oil adds the long chain marine fats that plant oils cannot supply. Linseeds appear further down for the same reason. Cod oil is also the entry that brings fish into the recipe. Register that before you choose this one for a fish-avoiding dog.

The finish is Gentle's usual: an itemised 2% herb mixture of stinging nettle, horsetail and dandelion, sea algae named as Ascophyllum nodosum for iodine, and a moor mineral clay to close. Behind that sits a full printed panel, with chelated copper, manganese and zinc, vitamin C at 140mg per kilo of food and choline chloride at 2000mg. Calcium converts to 1.36% of dry matter, comfortable for growing dogs and adults alike.

£5.93 a kilo. Two bag sizes are listed, 5kg and 14kg, and the 14kg is also available as a pair.

Feeding a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition, at about 840 kcal a day on the standard maintenance estimate (110 × bodyweight^0.75), works out at roughly 252 grams a day, or £1.49. The label's own adult guidance runs from 60 grams for a 5kg dog up to 480 grams for a 40kg one.