Josera Large Breed review

Our band for Large Breed is Good, and that is where the typical adult dry food finishes too. It earns its place with carbohydrate at 44.9% of dry matter, just under the 46.2% norm, protein at 28.3% and a fibre level above what most kibbles carry. Keeping it there are poultry entries that name no bird and a plant side led by rice and corn. Protein and processing and nutritional balance read Average, with transparency and value both reading Good. The ordinary things are done properly here, and no allowances are asked for.

Ingredients, as declared: poultry protein (dried) 29.0 %; rice; whole grain corn; poultry fat; salmon (dried) 4.0 %; plant fibre; beet fibre; poultry protein (hydrolysed); minerals; yeast; chicory root (ground, natural source of inulin); New Zealand greenlipped mussel meat (Perna canaliculus), dried.

Dried poultry protein at 29.0% heads the list, with a hydrolysed poultry protein further down that has been broken into smaller pieces for easy absorption and a savoury edge. Both are concentrated, their water already removed, so the place they take on the list is the place they keep in the finished kibble. That puts protein at 28.3% of dry matter.

Rice and whole grain corn are the cereals, and whole grain means the bran and germ arrive with the starch instead of being milled out of it. Between the two of them and the fibre entries, carbohydrate lands at 44.9% of dry matter, marginally under the 46.2% typical for adult dry food.

Fibre is the quiet difference in this recipe. Plant fibre and beet fibre together take it to 4.5% of dry matter, higher than most adult kibbles manage, which tends to mean firmer stools and a slower, steadier meal. Ground chicory root adds inulin, a prebiotic fibre that the bacteria of the large intestine thrive on.

The big-dog thinking shows up in two places. Dried green-lipped mussel meat is the joint ingredient, carrying the omega 3s that shellfish is known for. L-carnitine at 300 mg/kg moves fat towards being burned, a sensible inclusion on a food for a breed that should not be hauling extra weight about. Dried salmon at 4.0% supplies marine oil alongside them.

Zinc arrives at 160 mg/kg and copper at 20 mg/kg, both as glycine chelates, the form makers choose when they want a mineral absorbed instead of passed through. Taurine is listed too, though the label prints no figure beside it, so it is present without a stated dose.

Sold in a 15kg bag, which works out at £3.20 a kilo.

A 15kg adult in moderate condition would take about 230 grams daily, near enough £0.74, on the standard maintenance estimate of 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75). The label's own table, written for the less active dog, puts a 30kg one at 180 grams, so let condition decide between them.