Lifestage Grain Free Raw Puppy: Chicken & Beef review

The typical raw puppy food carries our Outstanding band word, and both of these recipes settle there too, which tells you how strong the field around them is. Raw is the toughest field we score, and what keeps these two in the thick of it is a label with nothing vague on it: every animal, every vegetable and every extra arrives with a percentage attached, with protein and processing, nutritional balance and transparency all reading Outstanding on both, and value Outstanding with them. The Chicken & Beef edges ahead, though both sit in the same band, so let your puppy's tolerance decide.

Ingredients, as declared: Chicken with bone (40%), beef tripe (15%), chicken liver (10%), beef with bone (10%), beef kidney (5%), green vegetables (9%), carrots (5%), butternut squash (4%), blueberries (1%), salmon oil (0.5%), chicory root (0.25%), kelp (0.25%).

The construction is identical across both recipes and easy to follow. Animal ingredients take 80% between four or five named entries, green vegetables take 9%, carrots 5%, butternut squash 4% and blueberries 1%. Salmon oil at 0.5%, chicory root at 0.25% and kelp at 0.25% close the list. Nothing is left to a general phrase except the green vegetables, which is the one entry that could change between batches.

Organ meat is generous for a puppy food. Beef tripe appears at 15% in both recipes, liver at 10% in one and 5% in the other, and kidney at 5% in both. Tripe is a ruminant's stomach, easily digested and rich in the fats a growing dog uses. For nutrient density liver is hard to beat among single ingredients, carrying vitamin A, B12, copper and iron in quantity. Together they are doing the job a vitamin premix would do elsewhere.

Bone is folded into the meat entries, and it is the calcium source in both recipes. No calcium figure is printed alongside, and it is the one thing missing from otherwise complete labels. It matters more for a puppy than for an adult, because a growing skeleton is less forgiving of the extremes in either direction.

Chicory root and kelp are small but purposeful. Chicory carries inulin, a soluble fibre the gut bacteria live on. In a young dog's bowl, while its digestion settles into a new diet, that is a sensible thing to have. Kelp brings iodine and a spread of trace minerals. Salmon oil at 0.5% supplies the omega 3 fats that neither vegetable nor lean meat will provide on their own.

The two recipes read very differently on the analysis, and that shows up at the bowl. The Chicken & Beef is the richer, with fat converting to 45.9% of dry matter at 163 kcal per 100g. The Turkey & Fish runs lean and high in protein, 55.3% of dry matter against 23.4% fat at 98 kcal. A puppy swapping between them eats noticeably more of the fish recipe to reach the same day.

Chicken with bone leads at 40%, then beef tripe at 15%, chicken liver at 10%, beef with bone at 10% and beef kidney at 5%. Of the pair this is the richer, fat converting to 45.9% of dry matter at 163 kcal per 100g, and it feeds in smaller portions than its stablemate.

Both recipes are £6.00 a kilo and both come in 500g tubs.

A puppy's portion moves as quickly as the puppy does, so the label gives a range at each stage. It asks 80g to 200g a day at 2kg of bodyweight, 400g to 1000g at 10kg, and 600g to 1500g by the time it reaches 15kg.