James & Ella Kibble + Raw Adult: Free-run Chicken review

The typical adult dry food finishes in our Good band, a mark two of these three share and the third betters. Country Game reaches the Excellent band on the strength of its duck and salmon pairing, with the free-run chicken and the grass-fed beef landing in the Good band just behind. What separates them is small. The game recipe has the lowest carbohydrate of the three, an estimated 29.2% of dry matter, and shares the highest protein at 37.0%. Transparency reads Outstanding on every bag, and protein and processing, nutritional balance and value all come in Good or better. One caveat on the figures: none of these labels declares moisture, so the dry matter conversions here assume the 8% usual for a kibble.

Ingredients, as declared: Chicken 63% (Freshly Prepared Chicken 24%, Chicken Meal 23%, Freeze Dried Chicken Pieces 8%, Chicken Fat 5.5%, Chicken Gravy 2.5%), Potato (21.2%), Sweet Potato (6.4%), Peas (4%), Beet Pulp, Salmon Oil, Minerals, Dried Carrot (0.5%, Equivalent to 4% Carrots), Prebiotic MOS (0.2%), Cranberry Extract (0.015%), Blueberry Powder (0.015%), Marigold Meal, Turmeric, Dried Spearmint. Key ingredients highlighted on the page: Free-run chicken, Potato, Sweet potato, Peas, Dried carrot, Blueberry powder, Cranberry extract, Salmon oil, Turmeric, Dried spearmint

The construction is the same in each recipe. A dried meat meal supplies concentrated protein, freshly prepared meat supplies palatability, and freeze-dried pieces at 8% go into the bag after the cooking rather than through it. The meal is doing most of the protein work, since the drier has already pulled the water from the fresh meat. Protein still converts to between 33.7% and 37.0% of dry matter across the range, and carbohydrate to between 29.2% and 34.8%. Both sit a long way the right side of the 46.2% typical of adult dry food.

The binding is potato and sweet potato, with peas at 4% behind them, and no grain appears on any of the three lists. The chicken recipe goes further and prints its starch shares, 21.2% potato and 6.4% sweet potato, which is more candour about the plant side than most labels offer.

Salmon oil is the omega source right across the range, and in the Country Game it doubles up with freshly prepared salmon at 26%. It genuinely earns its place, for skin and coat and for joints, and it does mean every recipe here carries fish.

Beet pulp handles the fibre and prebiotic MOS is declared at 0.2%. Dried carrot at 0.5% is printed as the equivalent of 4% fresh carrots, a nice piece of honesty about what drying does to a vegetable. Cranberry and blueberry follow at 0.015% each, then marigold meal and turmeric and a little dried spearmint. That tail is seasoning rather than substance, and these recipes do not need it to stand up.

Two entries are less forthcoming than the rest. The Country Game and beef recipes list a vegetable gravy without saying which vegetables. The trace minerals arrive mostly as plain oxides and sulphates, with only a small chelated zinc entry on the chicken and beef labels. Neither is a problem and neither is unusual, but on a label this open elsewhere they stand out.

None of the three declares calcium, the one figure an owner rearing a large breed puppy would most want to see. These are adult recipes, so for a grown dog the question does not arise.

Chicken at 63% is built from 24% freshly prepared, 23% chicken meal, 8% freeze-dried pieces, 5.5% chicken fat and 2.5% chicken gravy. No other meat appears in the recipe. Fish free it is not, because salmon oil remains on the list. For a dog that needs to stay on one land animal, though, it is the cleanest of the three. Energy is declared at 410 kcal per 100g.

Per kilo, all three recipes are £15.33. Bags run 1.5kg, 3kg, 4.5kg and 6kg, with the Country Game also offered in 12kg.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition eats between 193 and 212 grams a day, assuming about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That works out at between £2.96 and £3.24 a day, depending on the recipe.