Kronch Active review

Our scoring leaves this one in the Average band. That is a rung below the Good band where the typical bag lands. What holds it in place is the plant side: rice, maize and barley put carbohydrate at 44.5% of dry matter, close to the 46.2% that is typical. The fish is declared at 16% fresh, with the meal share left unstated. Protein and processing reads Poor and nutritional balance Average, while transparency comes back Outstanding. For a hard-running dog, the fat and the energy on offer will matter more than where the band falls.

Ingredients, as declared: Fish (16% fresh salmon, fish meal), rice, maize, barley, lard (of edible grade), blood meal, brewer's yeast, beet pulp, lecithin, vitamins and minerals. The page adds: "Kronch Active contains 24% protein and 16% fat."

Fish leads at 16% fresh salmon with fish meal behind it, and the second half of that entry is where most of the protein really comes from. Fresh salmon arrives wet and leaves the oven much lighter. Fish meal is already dried and concentrated when it goes in. The label gives one combined figure, so the meal share stays unstated. The outcome is still measured: protein converts to 26.1% of dry matter and fat to 17.4%, with energy at 360 kcal per 100g.

Between the rice, the maize and the barley, the estimated carbohydrate works out at 44.5% of dry matter, just under the 46.2% typical of adult dry food. Barley brings fibre and a set of micronutrients once cooked, though it carries gluten. The fermentable fibre comes from beet pulp, and it helps hold a stool together. In a food aimed at dogs covering real distance that is worth having.

Lard supplies most of the added fat and is a straightforward, energy-dense choice for a working ration. Pig fat, in other words, on a label whose headline is salmon. Blood meal sits nearby as a protein-dense addition that names no animal, and lecithin does the emulsifying.

Brewer's yeast is the small extra with a job beyond the analysis. It is among the richest natural sources of B vitamins and dogs generally find it appetising, which helps when a dog comes home too tired to think about dinner.

The mineral panel is published in full, with calcium working out at 1.14% of dry matter, a comfortable adult level, alongside declared sodium, phosphorus, magnesium, potassium, iron, zinc, copper, manganese, iodine, cobalt and selenium. Iron is the most generously declared of them, which suits a food written for dogs asking a lot of their blood. One line in the vitamin block prints B12 in milligrams where micrograms are the usual unit. That looks like a slip in the published figures, not a difference in the bag.

£4.44 a kilo, sold in 5kg and 13.5kg bags.

Take a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition and around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That works out at roughly 233 grams a day and £1.04 to fill the bowl. The label puts a dog of that weight between 160 and 250 grams, so an active one will sit near the top of that spread and a settled one near the bottom.