Lakes Collection Lakes Heritage Grain Free: Duck with Orange review

Every recipe in this range lands in our Good band, level with the typical adult dry food. The construction is what earns it. Half of each bag is declared as named animal, split between fresh and dried so you can see how much of each you are getting. Sweet potato and peas do the starch work here, with no wheat or maize. Protein converts to between 27.2% and 31.5% of dry matter across the ten, and transparency reads Outstanding on every bag. Protein and processing holds Good on all bar the haddock and the salmon, the mark of a range built to one standard. The spread between the highest and lowest is small enough that the animal, not the placement, should decide which bag goes in the trolley.

Ingredients, as declared: Duck 50% (including Freshly Prepared Duck 28%, Dried Duck 20% & Duck Stock 2%), Sweet Potato (26%), Peas (6%), Potato, Beet Pulp, Linseed, Omega 3 Supplement, Minerals, Orange (0.3%), Cranberry, Fructooligosaccharides (FOS, 96 mg/kg), Mannanoligosaccharides (MOS, 24 mg/kg). No Added Artificial Colours & Preservatives Naturally preserved using rosemary extract.

The half-a-bag meat headline is split between a freshly prepared portion and a dried one, and both figures are printed. That matters. A fresh entry carries water that bakes off, while the dried share arrives concentrated. Read that way the fresh percentage flatters slightly and the dried percentage is doing more work than its position suggests. The finished analysis backs the recipes up regardless: protein lands between 27.2% and 31.5% of dry matter across the range.

Sweet potato leads the plant side in every recipe, from 21.5% up to 27%, with peas between 6% and 9.5% and potato close behind. There is no wheat, maize, rice or barley anywhere in the range, which is what makes the grain-free promise on the front hold up. Beet pulp follows as the fibre source, and linseed sits nearby bringing omega 3 in its plant form.

Gut support comes from two prebiotics with printed doses, fructooligosaccharides at 96 mg/kg and mannanoligosaccharides at 24 mg/kg. Fruit and vegetables give the first and yeast cell walls the second. Both are there to keep the useful gut population thriving. They are small inclusions, but they are honest ones.

Each product name ends in a fruit, a herb or a vegetable, and that is decoration, not nutrition. The label is straight enough to print figures that say so. Carrot appears at 0.1%, blackberry at 0.22%, mulberry at 0.2%, apple at 0.7% and most of the others at 0.3%. None of that changes the food, and none of it needs to. Choose the bag for the animal on the front, not the garnish after it.

No artificial colours or preservatives are added and rosemary extract does the preserving, a natural antioxidant that slows the fats going off. Minerals are declared as a group and not dosed individually, which is common enough at this level and the one place the label could tell you more.

Duck at 28% freshly prepared, 20% dried and 2% stock, with orange printed at 0.3% and cranberry alongside it. For a dog that has gone off chicken, duck is a sensible next step and no great leap to a game meat. This is one of the recipes that keeps to a single bird from top to bottom.

All ten recipes come in 2kg and 12kg bags.

Portion guidance for a moderate 15kg adult lands between 227 and 248 grams a day depending on which animal you pick, based on roughly 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). The label tables ask 145 to 260 grams for a dog between 10kg and 20kg, so the waistline settles the rest.