JosiDog Master Mix review

Our reading lands JosiDog Master Mix in the Average band, with the typical adult dry food a rung higher in Good. The order of the list is what does it. Whole grain maize and barley both sit above the dried poultry protein. The meat and bone meal behind them names no animal and no cut. The analysis tells a calmer story: protein converts to 23.9% of dry matter, fat to a moderate 12.0%, and the energy figure of 356 kcal per 100 grams is squarely ordinary for the category. This is a plain everyday kibble for a dog with no dietary complications, and it deserves to be read that way.

Ingredients, as declared: whole grain maize; barley; dried poultry protein; meat and bone meal; beet fibre; poultry fat; rice; hydrolysed poultry protein; hydrolysed animal protein; maize protein; minerals; beetroot powder (0.1%)

Two grains open the list. Whole grain maize keeps its bran and germ rather than being stripped back to plain starch, and the barley behind it is easily digested once cooked, bringing fibre along with selenium and copper. Barley does carry gluten, a thing to note in a household that avoids it. Rice appears further down, and maize protein lower still, topping up the amino acid side from the plant end.

Dried poultry protein is the leading animal entry and arrives already concentrated, so its place on the list is not inflated by water. Meat and bone meal sits directly behind it, and that is the vaguest entry on the label. Bone meal can come from any animal, and it is there mainly as a natural source of calcium and phosphorus. Hydrolysed poultry protein and hydrolysed animal protein appear lower down for savour, the second again naming no species.

Protein converts to 23.9% of dry matter and fat to 12.0%, a deliberately moderate level. Crude fibre runs at 3.3% of dry matter, with the beet fibre entry doing most of that work, and carbohydrate estimates at 53.5% of dry matter against the 46.2% typical for adult dry food. Energy comes out at 356 kcal per 100 grams, about as middle of the road as a dry food gets.

Beetroot powder at 0.1% is the label's flourish. At that inclusion it is a colour and a nod rather than a nutritional contributor, and the recipe neither gains nor loses much for having it. It is a tidy example of why the percentage next to an ingredient matters as much as the ingredient itself.

L-carnitine at 200 mg per kilo is the more meaningful addition. The amino acid helps turn stored fat into fuel, a sensible partner to the modest fat level. Doses are printed for the mineral pack: zinc at 160 mg per kilo as a glycine chelate, iron at 180 mg per kilo. Vitamin C is declared at 45 mg per kilo.

£2.33 a kilo. Sold in 900g bags, in a multipack of the same and in a 15kg sack.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition needs around 236 grams a day, assuming about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That works out at roughly £0.55 a day. The label's chart asks 150 grams at 10kg and 250 grams at 20kg, so let your dog's condition have the final say.