Markus Muhle Lupo Sensitive 24/10 Dry Food review

This finishes in our Good band, as the typical cold-pressed food does, a little short of that food's mark but comfortably inside the same company. On the analysis it reads better than the leaner 20/8, with protein at 26.1% of dry matter and the meat entry moved to the front of the list. The fuller mineral panel helps as well. What keeps it where it is remains the starch: carbohydrate converts to 51.7% of dry matter against 43.2% for cold-pressed food generally, which is what a pellet must carry to hold together without a cereal.

Ingredients, as declared: 33% dried ground chicken meat, 32% potato flour, dried ground parsnips, beet pulp, 5% milk thistle, 5%, cold-pressed mixed vegetable oils (contains: linseed oil, canola oil, borage seed oil), algae powder, 2%, salmon oil, 1.5% dried moor, 1.5% dried chicory, 1% healing earth, 1% dried stinging nettle, 1% dried, dandelion leaves, yucca schidigera

This is the same idea as the 20/8 with the dial turned up. Chicken moves to the front at 33% and potato flour drops in behind it at 32%. Protein climbs to 26.1% of dry matter and fat to 10.9%, and the label is cleared for puppies as well as adults on the strength of it.

Everything here is pressed, not extruded: pressure at low temperature does the work that steam and heat do elsewhere. The pellet that comes out is dense and breaks up quickly once it is wet. Owners of fast eaters and sensitive stomachs have taken to the format for exactly that.

Grain free means potato flour in this recipe, with parsnips and beet pulp behind it for fibre and dried chicory at 1.5% added as a prebiotic that the leaner pressing does without. Carbohydrate still lands at 51.7% of dry matter, since a pressed pellet needs starch to hold its shape. The grain free claim is about the kind of starch, not the amount.

Chicken is the only named animal, dried and ground before pressing, and the only other thing from farm or sea is the salmon oil at 2%. For a dog whose reactions are being narrowed down, that short cast is the whole point of the food, though the fish oil does mean it is not a true single source recipe.

The herbal tail is the house style: milk thistle at 5%, dried moor, healing earth, stinging nettle, dandelion leaf and yucca. Not one of them carries a label claim, and all sit at levels that read as tradition and gentle support. The oils are named as linseed, canola and borage seed within a 5% blend, with algae powder alongside them.

The additive panel is the fuller of the two pressings, printing zinc at 65mg a kilo, manganese at 48mg, copper at 10mg and iodine at 1.6mg alongside a complete vitamin list. That is more mineral detail than many labels give, and it makes the recipe easier to judge. Calcium works out at 1.52% of dry matter, which suits growth as well as maintenance.

It comes in 15kg bags.

On the standard maintenance estimate, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition takes about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75), which against this food's estimated energy content is roughly 250 grams a day.