Natural & Delicious N&D White: Sea Bass, Spirulina & Fennel review

Good is the band this lands in, holding level with the typical adult dry food. A fifth of the bag is declared as sea bass, with another fifth as dehydrated sea bass protein, and that accounts for most of it. The carbohydrate estimate of 43.0% of dry matter helps as well, where a dry food typically runs at 46.2%. The figure keeping it from climbing higher is protein, at 25.3% of dry matter, which reflects a recipe leaning a little more on its starch than the meat-first headline suggests.

Ingredients, as declared: seabass (20%), dehydrated seabass protein (20%), sweet potato, fish oil (from herring), hydrolysed fish protein, dried spirulina (5%), linseed, dried fennel (2.5%), pea fibre, alfalfa meal, inulin, fructo-oligosaccharides, yeast extract (source of manno-oligo-saccharides), dried spinach, psyllium husks and seeds, dried brewers' yeast, dicalcium phosphate, potassium chloride, sodium chloride, aloe vera extract, glucosamine, chondroitin sulphate.

Sea bass appears twice, at 20% as the fish itself and 20% as dehydrated sea bass protein. Water makes up most of the fresh entry and the oven drives it off. Delivering protein into the kibble is down to the dried one. Even with both, the finished figure is 23.0% as fed, or 25.3% of dry matter, which is moderate rather than muscular.

Everything with a face in this recipe swims, and that is the real appeal, with no chicken, lamb or beef anywhere on the list. The nuance is that the oil is drawn from herring, not sea bass, and a hydrolysed fish protein names no species at all. The bag is honestly all fish without being honestly all sea bass. For a dog simply being kept off land meat that changes nothing; for a strict species trial it matters.

Sweet potato is the single significant starch, with pea fibre, psyllium husks and alfalfa meal working the fibre side and inulin with fructo-oligosaccharides feeding the gut bacteria. No cereal appears at any point.

Dried spirulina at 5% is there for its pigments and micronutrient content. It is a blue green algae. Dried fennel at 2.5% is an aromatic more often met in the kitchen than the feed bin. Plant omega 3s come from the linseed, and the marine ones come from the fish oil.

The supplement panel is the strong part of this label. Zinc at 163.8mg, manganese at 64.6mg and iron at 58.3mg all arrive as chelates, selenium comes from an inactivated selenised yeast, and taurine at 1000mg with L-carnitine at 300mg are both printed. Dicalcium phosphate and potassium chloride are there to balance minerals that fish alone cannot cover, and calcium settles at 0.99% of dry matter.

One entry does stop a careful reader: microcrystalline cellulose, listed among the technological additives. Its job is to keep powders flowing and mixes even, and it is a purified plant fibre. At that position on the list there is no reason to read more into a processing aid.

£11.99 a kilo, sold in 2kg bags.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition eats around 214 grams a day, which works out at £2.56, assuming about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). Judge the portion by the waistline, never by the scoop.