Natural & Delicious N&D Prime Puppy Mini Dry Food review

This sits in our Excellent band, with the middle of the puppy kibble market a rung below. Outstanding covers transparency and nutritional balance, while protein and processing reads Good and value Excellent. What earns it the spot is the sheer weight of animal ingredients set against a very small carbohydrate share. The maker also prints every additive with its dose next to it.

Ingredients, as declared: Fresh boneless chicken (28%), dehydrated chicken meat (27%), sweet potatoes, chicken fat, dried whole eggs, fresh herrings, dehydrated herrings, fish oil(from herring), fiber vegetable of peas, dried carrots, dried alfalfa, chicken cartilages (source of glucosamine and chondroitin sulfate), inulin, fructooligosaccharides, yeast extract (source of mannan-oligosaccharides), dried pomegranate (0.5%), dried apple, spinach powder, psyllium (0.3%), dried sweet orange, dried blueberries, sodium chloride, dried brewer's yeast, turmeric root (0.2%).

The meat here is chicken twice over, 28% of it fresh and boneless and 27% dehydrated. The dehydrated figure is the one that survives cooking most intact, its water having already been taken out. Protein is declared at 36.0%, or 39.6% once moisture is set aside, and that follows naturally from the front of the bag.

There is no grain in the recipe at all. Sweet potato does the binding by itself, a carbohydrate with more fibre and vitamin A behind it than the ordinary kind. The estimated carbohydrate figure of 24.2% of dry matter is remarkably low for a kibble, where 39.0% is the usual mark on a puppy food.

There are two herring entries here, one fresh and one dehydrated, plus fish oil pressed from that same herring. Dried whole eggs sit alongside. A small dog's diet benefits from that spread of amino acids and marine fats, and the herring is named rather than left as generic fish, though it does mean three animal sources share the bowl.

Growth food lives or dies on its mineral balance. Ash is declared at 8.6% and calcium works out at 1.65% of dry matter, a generous supply. On a bag written for small breeds that reads very differently than it would on a big breed food. A small skeleton is finished quickly, and it is far less sensitive to a rich mineral supply than a heavy framed pup is over a long, slow growth period. Feed to the chart and it is simply a well mineralised recipe.

The rest of the list runs long and reads well. The label names chicken cartilage as the source of the joint compounds. Inulin and fructooligosaccharides work on the gut, with a yeast extract supplying mannan-oligosaccharides and psyllium at 0.3%. Then comes a fruit and herb tail: pomegranate at 0.5%, apple, spinach powder, sweet orange, blueberries and turmeric at 0.2%. The declared panel adds taurine at 1000 mg, L-Carnitine at 300 mg and choline chloride at 2800 mg, with selenium given as selenised yeast.

Because everything is so concentrated, portions look startlingly small on the scales. The chart tops out at 45g a day. That takes some getting used to if you are accustomed to filling a bowl by eye, and it is exactly why a food like this suits a small mouth.

£11.20 a kilo, sold in a 2.5kg bag.

Small pups eat small amounts that still shift constantly, so use the chart for your pup's age and grown up weight and adjust it as often as they change. It runs from 25g a day for the youngest up to 45g a day at its widest point.