Natural & Delicious N&D Pumpkin Puppy Mini review

We put this in our Excellent band, which leaves the middle of the puppy kibble field behind. Protein and processing reads Good, with nutritional balance and transparency both Outstanding, so nothing here is propping up anything else.

What lifts it above the average puppy bag is the declared calcium and a starch load kept lighter than most growth kibbles manage. The long tail of fruit and botanicals is what holds it back. Those entries look impressive on the pack, but their levels are too small to change the food.

Ingredients, as declared: lamb (24%), dehydrated lamb protein (24%), pea starch, chicken fat, dehydrated herring protein, dried pumpkin (5%), herring, dried eggs, fish oil (from herring), pea fibre, dried carrot, alfalfa meal, chicken cartilage (source of glucosamine and chondroitin sulphate), inulin, fructo-oligosaccharides, yeast extract (source of manno-oligo-saccharides), dried blueberry (0.5%), dried spinach, psyllium husks and seeds (0.3%), dried apple, dried sweet orange, dried pomegranate, sodium chloride, dried brewers' yeast, turmeric (0.2%), aloe vera extract.

The head of the list is lamb twice over: 24% fresh, then dehydrated lamb protein at another 24%. The dried meat went into the bag with its water already gone, while fresh lamb loses most of its own in the oven. So the second entry does more for the finished kibble than its number suggests. Dehydrated herring protein and dried eggs sit behind them. The animal side of this recipe is a broad one.

Pea starch is the binder and no cereal appears anywhere. It works: carbohydrate is estimated at 28.5% of dry matter where a typical puppy dry food runs at 39.0%, a meaningfully lighter starch load for a kibble. Pea fibre and psyllium husks at 0.3% look after the stool side, both of them gentle.

In a growth food no number counts for more than calcium. This label prints it at 1.21% of dry matter, inside the range growing bone wants. The maker aims the recipe at small breeds, and for pups of that size the figure reads exactly as you would hope.

Dried pumpkin at 5% gives the bag its name and brings soluble fibre with it. Blueberry at 0.5%, spinach, apple, sweet orange and pomegranate follow further down, with turmeric at 0.2% and aloe vera extract. At those levels they are seasoning and not substance.

Joint support is here in principle. The source of glucosamine and chondroitin sulphate is named as chicken cartilage, but no dose is given for either, so there is no way to weigh it against a food that prints its milligrams.

The additive panel is where this label turns generous. Taurine at 1000mg and L-carnitine at 300mg per kilo are both unusual inclusions in a puppy food. Choline chloride runs at 2800mg and vitamin E at 600mg. Selenium arrives in its yeast form, the organic one and not the mineral salt. Green tea extract at 100mg and rosemary extract close things out on the preservative side.

£11.00 a kilo, sold in a 2.5kg bag.

Growth portions never hold still, so let the chart on the bag and the shape of your pup set the scoop each week. The label's own guide runs between 25g and 45g a day across the bodyweights it covers.