Naked Dog Superfoods: Beef review

Raw keeps the strongest company of any category, and its midpoint earns our Outstanding band. All three of these take that word as well, which is genuinely hard to do in this company. The Game leads them on the highest protein reading of the trio, 55.1% of dry matter, and the biggest named game share. The Beef follows on a 90% animal label, and the Turkey is the leanest of the three at 25.5% of dry matter fat. Every pillar reads Outstanding on every recipe, protein and processing, nutritional balance, transparency and value alike, so choose whichever animal suits your dog best.

Ingredients, as declared: Beef (50%), Beef Tripe (15%), Beef Heart (10%), Beef Bone (5%), Beef Trachea (5%), Beef Liver (2.5%), Beef Kidney (2.5%), Butternut Squash, Green Vegetables, Blueberry, Salmon Oil, Kelp, Turmeric, Ginger, Spirulina, Ground Black Pepper, Wheatgrass

The animal content is the headline and it is generous. The Beef adds up to 90% beef across seven separate entries, and the Turkey puts turkey with bone at 65% before its organ share. The Game splits its lead between venison at 30%, duck with bone at 25% and venison with bone at 10%. Bone comes through the meat in every case, and beef tripe at 15% is a constant.

Beef trachea at 5% turns up in all three, which you rarely see itemised. Trachea is cartilage rich connective tissue, a natural source of the same compounds that get added to other foods as joint supplements. Including it is the sort of thing that only happens when a maker buys whole animals. Kidney and liver at 2.5% each complete the organ set.

The botanical tail is what gives the range its name. Turmeric and ground black pepper appear together, which is the traditional pairing, since the pepper is what makes turmeric's compounds easier for the body to take up. Ginger, spirulina and wheatgrass sit alongside them, and kelp handles the iodine. None of these carries a percentage, so they read as a considered flourish on top of a strong recipe rather than the reason to buy it.

No vitamin and mineral premix is added. Naked Dog's position is that a properly built raw recipe does not need one. With liver, kidney, tripe and trachea in every tub plus kelp and salmon oil, the argument stands up better here than it does on many labels that make it. The micronutrition is therefore read off the ingredients, with no dosed panel behind it. None of the three publishes a calcium figure.

The analyses read the way a recipe of meat and offal should. Protein converts to between 48.6% and 55.1% of dry matter and fat to between 25.5% and 33.1%. Carbohydrate reaches no more than 10.3%, and the only plant matter of any size is squash and greens, so most of that figure is arithmetic left over. The Turkey's ash figure of 13.6% of dry matter is the one that stands out, and it tracks the bone in that 65% turkey entry.

Seven beef entries add up to 90%: beef at 50%, tripe at 15%, heart at 10%, bone at 5%, trachea at 5%, with kidney and liver at 2.5% apiece. Only this recipe puts a single land animal on the label. At 146 kcal per 100g, with fat converting to 33.1% of dry matter, it is the richest of the three.

All three are £7.00 a kilo, sold as single 500g tubs or in variety boxes of 5kg, 10kg, 15kg and 20kg.

Feeding a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition takes between 573 and 676 grams a day, on the standard maintenance estimate of 840 kcal (110 × bodyweight^0.75). That is £4.01 a day on the Beef, £4.73 on the Turkey. The lighter recipes feed in larger portions, which is the whole of that difference.