Naturaw Forage Senior: Grass Fed Beef review

Outstanding is where this recipe finishes, matching the band the middle of the raw field holds. Raw is the toughest company on our scoring, so keeping pace with the category's own midpoint is a genuine result, and protein and processing, nutritional balance and value all read Outstanding, with transparency Good.

Ingredients, as declared: Free Range British Chicken with Bone 39.1%, Boneless Grass Fed British Beef 30.2% (Heart 20.2%, Liver 10%), Grass Fed British Lamb Trachea & Lung 9.9%, Whole Seasonal Oily Fish 6.6%, Broccoli 5.6%, Organic Kale 2.3%, Forage Botanical Blend 2.1% (Hand Harvested Organic Scottish Seaweed, Wheatgrass, Pumpkin Seeds, Hemp Seeds, Scandinavian Blue Mussel - MSC, Cleavers, Nettles), Whole Blackberries 1.9%, Free Range British Egg 1.9%, Lions Mane Mushroom 0.25%, Pure Yorkshire Sea Salt 0.1%

The order of the list is worth a moment. Free range British chicken with bone leads at 39.1% and grass fed British beef follows at 30.2%, but the beef is entirely organ, split as heart at 20.2% and liver at 10%. That is a much larger organ share than most complete raw recipes carry. Organs hold the bulk of an animal's vitamin A, B12, copper and B vitamins. In a recipe with no premix behind it, that matters.

Grass fed British lamb trachea and lung at 9.9% is the entry you rarely see spelled out. Trachea is cartilage rich and lung is soft connective tissue, both of them traditional inclusions in bowls put together for older dogs, and both far more digestible than their names suggest. They also give the food a texture that many older dogs take to readily.

Lion's mane mushroom is declared at 0.25%. It is a fashionable ingredient at the moment, and printing the figure is honest of the label. A quarter of a percent is a small addition on a recipe that stands perfectly well on its meat. Read it as a considered extra rather than as a claim.

The Forage botanical blend is declared at 2.1% and fully itemised. The seaweed is hand harvested off Scotland and organic, and it carries iodine plus a broad mineral spread. Wheatgrass is leaf, not grain, so cereal and gluten stay out of the bowl. Pumpkin and hemp seeds add fats and minerals, and cleavers and nettles sit at trace level. Certified for sustainable sourcing, Scandinavian blue mussel is the shellfish entry to note, and Pure Yorkshire sea salt closes the list at 0.1%.

The analysis reads like adult raw food, not a diluted senior version of it. Protein converts to 50.1% of dry matter, fat to 36.9%, and carbohydrate is estimated at 4.3%, comfortably under the 5.0% the raw field typically shows. Energy lands at 158 kcal per 100g, a whisker above the 155 typical of raw. If your dog has slowed down with age, give a smaller portion of this food, not a weaker one. No calcium figure is published, which is the one number missing from an otherwise very full page.

£7.64 a kilo. The packs hold 500g, boxed either 16 to a small box or 30 to a large one.

For a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition, needing about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate), that comes to roughly 531 grams a day, or £4.06. The maker's own guide is leaner, putting a 15kg dog on 300 grams a day, and for an older dog doing less walking the label figure is the sensible place to begin.