Nature's Variety Complete Freeze Dried Food Adult: 80% Lamb (Mini) review

All seven reach our Outstanding band, level with each other and level with the typical freeze dried food, which lands in the same place. Drawing with that field is a strong result rather than a modest one, because freeze drying tends to keep a meat share honest and the whole category scores well with us. Protein and processing, nutritional balance and transparency read Outstanding on every pack here, from the ingredient list through to the analysis. Our scoring will not separate these for you, so pick whichever animal suits your dog best.

Ingredients, as declared: Lamb* 80% (deboned lamb meat 35%, lamb lung 35%, lamb heart 5%, lamb liver 5%), carrots* (5%), apples* (5%), pea fibre* (1.25%), butternut squash* (1%), sweet potato* (1%), minerals (1%), cranberries* (0.5%), blackberries* (0.5%), flaxseed*, chicory root*, kale*, peppermint*, coconut oil*, beet pulp*, green tea*, yucca*, rosemary*, parsley*, dandelion root*, hawthorn leaf*.

Few labels itemise that 80%. This one does. Beef splits into 50% deboned meat and 30% lung, and chicken into 40% meat with 30% heart and 10% liver. Lamb is 35% meat and 35% lung with 5% each of heart and liver, and turkey 55% meat with 20% heart and 5% liver. Organs carry much of an animal's micronutrition, and having them named and weighed here is genuinely useful.

Freeze drying takes water out at low temperature without cooking it away, so the animal share on the front stays close to what it says once the pack is opened. The analysis agrees: protein converts to between 39.4% and 42.6% of dry matter across the four recipes and fat to between 31.9% and 38.3%, while the carbohydrate estimate never climbs above 9.6%.

Nothing wanders in from a second animal. There is no fish oil, no egg and no unnamed fat on any of the seven labels. That gives a dog on an elimination trial a genuinely clean single species, and its owner four proteins to rotate through afterwards.

Every plant entry is small and carries a weight. Carrots and apples come in at 5% each, pea fibre at 1.25%, butternut squash and sweet potato at 1%, then cranberries and blackberries at 0.5%. Behind those runs a tail of flaxseed, chicory root, kale, coconut oil, beet pulp, green tea, yucca and a few herbs, present in seasoning quantities rather than in amounts that shift the analysis. Chicory root is worth a second look. Its inulin acts as a prebiotic and feeds the bacteria in the large intestine. The beef is the only recipe with an added oil of its own, sunflower oil at 0.8%.

Minerals go in at 1% and the added panel is short but printed with figures. Vitamin A is at 1000 IU, vitamin D at 100 IU and vitamin E at 14mg, with zinc at 18.3mg, iron at 6mg and iodine at 0.26mg. Ash runs from 7% on the lamb to 11% on the chicken. Calcium works out between 1.06% and 2.45% of dry matter depending on how much organ each recipe carries, and the chicken and lamb are at the high end of it.

The lamb recipe in the small dog pack, identical from the 35% deboned meat down to the hawthorn leaf at the end of the list. Being the richest recipe in the range, it asks for the least in the bowl, which suits a small dog with a modest appetite.

Packs are 0.25kg at full size and 0.12kg for the Minis. The three Mini packs work out at £37.96 a kilo.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition needs roughly 165 to 197 grams a day depending on the recipe, assuming about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). On the Mini packs that lands between £6.83 and £7.48 a day.