Lukullus Naturkost review

This one settles in our Good band, alongside the typical cold-pressed food, sitting a little under the middle of that group. A named chicken lead, percentages printed against most of what matters and a list a normal shopper can read straight through are what earn the place. Holding it back is the cereal side: carbohydrate converts to 51.7% of dry matter where cold-pressed food generally runs to 43.2%, and a slice of the protein arrives as maize gluten and not as meat.

Ingredients, as declared: Dried chicken (28%), maize (21%), rice (20%), dried beef protein, maize gluten, salmon oil (4%), dried beet pulp (3.2%), linseed (3.1%), rapeseed oil (3%), egg powder, apple (2.5%), mixed herbs (2.2%), seaweed meal, cranberries (0.5%), yucca schidigera extract, sunflower oil, hydrolysed poultry liver, minerals.

Start with how it is pressed. The mix is pressed at low temperature and never meets the heat and steam of an extruder. That gives a dense pellet that crumbles in liquid. The argument for the method is that less heat means less done to the ingredients on the way in.

Dried chicken leads at 28%, and dried is the word that matters. The water has already gone, so that figure stands for more actual meat than the same percentage on a fresh meat label would. Dried beef protein comes in behind it, which is why protein reaches 27.6% of dry matter without the recipe leaning entirely on the bird.

Maize at 21% and rice at 20% are the carbohydrate, and both are named outright instead of hiding inside a cereals heading, which we prefer even when the grains themselves are ordinary. Beet pulp at 3.2% brings gentle fibre along with them. Maize gluten is the entry we like least here, since it lifts the protein figure from a cereal source and does less for a dog than the same percentage of meat would.

This food shows its character in the tail of the list. Salmon oil at 4% and linseed at 3.1% cover the omega fats between them, rapeseed and sunflower oils add more, and egg powder brings a very digestible protein. Apple at 2.5%, cranberries at 0.5% and seaweed meal for its iodine round the recipe off, with yucca extract folded in as well.

Two entries are vaguer than the rest. The mixed herbs at 2.2% cover a lot of ground under one heading. The hydrolysed poultry liver is there to make the pellet taste of something, and it too leaves its bird unnamed. The minerals close the list without printed doses beside them, and calcium works out at 1.11% of dry matter.

£2.70 a kilo. It is sold in a 15kg bag, and in an economy pack of two of those bags.

A 15kg adult dog in moderate condition needs about 840 kcal a day on the standard maintenance estimate (110 × bodyweight^0.75), which on this food comes to roughly 242 grams, or £0.65 a day.