Gilpa Super Mix review

This recipe lands in our Average band, a rung under the Good band that holds the middle of the adult dry shelf. Nutritional balance reads Poor and protein and processing Average, and the first line explains most of it. Wheat sits ahead of the meat, the poultry meal names only part of its bird, protein comes to 22.0% of dry matter, and the estimated carbohydrate share runs above the dry food norm. Transparency reads Good, helped by the percentages the label does choose to print. What a band cannot capture is that the recipe still makes room for salmon oil and mussel extract, and that a robust adult dog feeds perfectly well on it.

Ingredients, as declared: Wheat, poultry meal (15% chicken), chicken fat, maize, salmon oil (1.5%), vitamins and minerals, linseed (0.6%), potatoes and carrots (4% potatoes and carrots in the orange piece), rice (4% rice in the orange piece), yucca extract, mixed herbs, extract of New Zealand green-lipped Mussel.

Wheat comes first with maize close behind, and between them they carry most of the energy in this food. Both are ordinary kibble grains that bind well and cook cleanly, and wheat is simply the one with the longest history of upsetting sensitive dogs.

The meat is poultry meal with chicken declared at 15%. A meal is already dried, so gram for gram it counts for more than fresh meat does. The chicken named inside is a sound protein. The remainder of that poultry stays a family name, which is what keeps this label from telling you the whole story.

Salmon oil at 1.5% is the standout in the smaller print. It is a marine omega 3 source, the kind a dog can use directly with no conversion needed, and the label names the species where many just say fish oil. Linseed at 0.6% adds the plant version behind it.

The orange piece is the food's party trick, carrying 4% potatoes and carrots and 4% rice. Carrot brings beta carotene and a little soluble fibre, potato and rice bring starch, and at those percentages the piece is there for texture and interest, not as a nutritional pillar.

Protein works out at 22.0% of dry matter, fat at 11.0% and fibre at 3.3%, with carbohydrate estimated at 57.1% of dry matter where the typical adult dry food runs at 46.2%. Energy is an estimate rather than a declaration, at 337 kcal per 100g.

Neither the vitamins nor the minerals are broken out into a dosed panel, so zinc, copper and calcium all go unpublished here. Rounding off the list are yucca extract and mixed herbs, plus New Zealand green lipped mussel extract. The mussel is the joint entry, and a genuinely useful one on a food that expects to feed older dogs.

£1.83 a kilo, sold in a 15kg bag.

Taking maintenance at about 840 kcal a day for a 15kg adult (110 × bodyweight^0.75), that comes to roughly 249 grams a day, or £0.46. The label's own chart runs from 130 grams for a 10kg dog up to 700 grams at 45kg, so a big dog will work through a bag a good deal faster.