Josera Festival review

Festival lands in our Good band, level with the typical adult dry food. What puts it there is not quite what you would expect. Carbohydrate is actually below the adult dry norm and protein is respectable at 28.3% of dry matter. What holds it back is naming. The poultry protein, the poultry fat, the poultry liver and the hydrolysed poultry protein all decline to say which bird, and whole grain corn takes second place on the list. Protein and processing reads Average on that basis, with transparency the same and nutritional balance a step up at Good. For a dog that has been turning its nose up at dinner, none of that changes what the bowl does.

Ingredients, as declared: poultry protein (dried); whole grain corn; rice; poultry fat; beet fibre; salmon (dried) 6.0 %; potato starch; poultry protein (hydrolysed); minerals; poultry liver (dried); yeast; hemoglobin powder; chicory root, ground (natural source of inulin); New Zealand greenlipped mussel meat (Perna canaliculus), dried.

Dried poultry protein leads, which for a kibble is the right way round. Its water went before the mixer ever saw it, so the entry that heads the list still heads it once the biscuit is baked. Protein converts to 28.3% of dry matter and fat to 17.4%, a genuinely energetic pairing, and the food carries 382 kcal per 100g against the 357 typical for adult dry food.

Whole grain corn and rice follow, with potato starch further down as a binder. Carbohydrate works out at 43.9% of dry matter, a shade under the 46.2% that is typical. The corn's high position on the list makes the plant side look busier than it is.

The middle of the list is where the flavour work happens. Dried salmon at 6.0% brings marine oils and a smell dogs respond to. Dried poultry liver is nutrient dense and famously hard for a dog to walk past. Hydrolysed poultry protein is broken into small savoury fragments that work as a palatant as much as a protein.

Hemoglobin powder is the entry that stops a careful reader. It is exactly what it sounds like, the iron-carrying protein from blood, dried into a powder, and it is used as a highly digestible protein and a source of colour and savour. There is nothing to be wary of in it, it simply appears on very few labels.

Yeast, ground chicory root and beet fibre look after the gut. Chicory supplies the inulin, and that is food for the bacteria further down. Dried green-lipped mussel meat sits right at the end, a small helping of the shellfish best known for its omega 3s.

The mineral panel is dosed in full. Zinc and copper arrive as glycine chelates at 160 mg/kg and 20 mg/kg, which a dog absorbs more easily than plain mineral salts.

£3.73 a kilo, sold in a 15kg bag.

A 15kg adult dog in moderate condition would get through roughly 220 grams a day on this recipe, about £0.82, on an estimate of 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75). The label's table is written for the less active dog and puts a 20kg one at 135 grams, so use the two together and let condition decide.