Langham's Grain Free Dry review

This lands in our Average band, one step below most adult dry food. Two things keep it there. Starch heads the ingredients, and more than half of the meat declaration is left without a species. On the other side of the ledger, carbohydrate converts to 50.0% of dry matter, close to the 46.2% norm and not well above it. The extras are more generous than a recipe of this construction usually manages. Across the pillars it reads Average for protein and processing and for nutritional balance, with Good for transparency. That is a food doing a lot of sensible things quietly.

Ingredients, as declared: Potato Starch, Meat Meals 26% (Including 14% Turkey Meal), Dried Peas, Pea Starch, Beet Pulp (6%), Poultry Oil, Linseed (4.7%), Dried Sweet Potato (3.7%), Minerals, Dried Seaweed (0.09%), Mannan Oligosaccharides (MOS) (0.09%), Citrus Extract (0.03%), Glucosamine (0.02%), Yucca (0.01%), L- Carnitine (0.01%), Chondroitin Sulphate (0.01%), Dried Parsley (0.01%), Dried Oregano (0.01%), Dried Cranberry (0.009%), Marigold (0.004%).

Potato starch heads the list, so it is worth knowing exactly what that is. It is the binder that lets a grain free kibble hold its shape, and it is starch with very little else attached, unlike a whole potato. Dried peas and pea starch join it, so between them the plant side carries the recipe, and carbohydrate finishes at 50.0% of dry matter.

Meat meals at 26% is the entry to weigh up. Meal is meat dried down to a powder, the concentrated form. A quarter of the bag as meal therefore delivers more protein than fresh meat of the same weight ever could. Turkey is named for 14% of it, and turkey is a lean, easily digested bird that sits well with dogs. The remainder keeps only the family name, and that is the one place this otherwise talkative label goes quiet.

The omega source is linseed at 4.7%, and it is named, which plenty of labels never bother to do. Its omega 3 arrives in the plant form. A dog turns that into the active forms slowly, where a marine oil hands them over ready made. Treat it as a steady background, not a quick fix for a dull coat.

This label gets interesting at the bottom of the list. Seaweed and MOS both appear at 0.09%, citrus extract at 0.03%, glucosamine at 0.02% and chondroitin sulphate at 0.01%, each with a figure beside it. These are small helpings, and a printed figure still beats front-of-pack wording by a distance. Beet pulp at 6% handles the fibre and L-carnitine at 0.01% is the nod to a dog watching its waistline.

The mineral panel is fully itemised, and zinc is supplied twice over: 47 mg as the sulphate and 31.02 mg in a chelated form per kilo. Most dogs absorb the chelated type more readily. Dried parsley, oregano, cranberry and marigold close the list at trace level. That is seasoning and not substance, and the recipe holds together perfectly well without it.

£2.58 a kilo, sold in a 2kg bag.

Working it out per day, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition would eat about 264 grams a day, assuming around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That comes to £0.68 a day. The label does not print the energy figure behind that sum, so use it as a starting point and adjust for the dog you actually have.