Nature's Variety Selected Adult Medium / Maxi: Norwegian Salmon review

Every variety here reaches our Good band, level with what the average adult dry food returns. The construction is what earns it. Protein finishes between 31.5% and 33.7% of dry matter across the three. Against the 46.2% typical of an adult dry food, estimated carbohydrate runs 35.9% for the chicken and 36.4% for the other two. Nearly all of the ingredient list is printed with figures. Protein and processing and nutritional balance read Good on each member, with transparency Outstanding throughout. The limit on how far it can climb is that no recipe stays with one animal, and the hydrolysed protein entry names three species together.

Ingredients, as declared: Deboned Norwegian salmon* (16%), dried tuna protein (15%), dried peas* (13%), dried potato* (11%), poultry fat* (8%), sweet potato* (6%), dried salmon protein (6%), pea protein*, hydrolysed animal proteins (poultry, pork, fish) (4%), beet pulp*, minerals, dried carrot* (0.5% equivalent to 4% of fresh carrot), dried apple* (0.3% equivalent to 2% fresh apple), dried seaweed (kelp)* (0.01%), dried rosemary* (0.01%). *Natural ingredients

Each label opens with a deboned meat at 16%, which is a fresh weight and therefore mostly water before cooking. The dried protein entries behind it are where the durable protein comes from, and this range uses more than one of them. Chicken pairs with turkey in the bird recipes, tuna with salmon in the fish. Protein finishes between 31.5% and 33.7% of dry matter across the three.

No cereal appears in any of the three. The main binder is dried potato at 11%, and sweet potato and dried peas sit alongside it, with a pea fraction filling in behind. Carbohydrate is estimated at 35.9% of dry matter for the chicken and 36.4% for the other two, comfortably below the 46.2% an adult dry food normally carries. All of it is worked from an assumed 8% moisture, since none of the labels prints one.

The multi species build is worth understanding, and it is nothing to worry about. It widens the amino acid spread and it lets the maker hold the protein figure high without leaning too hard on plant protein, though pea protein does appear in the salmon. What it also means is that no recipe here is a single animal diet. The hydrolysed animal protein entry, at 4% in the chicken and salmon and 2.5% in the turkey, names poultry, pork and fish together for the same reason.

The fibre work falls to beet pulp. The closing tail is declared with real precision: dried carrot at 0.5%, then dried apple at 0.3%, and dried seaweed with dried rosemary at 0.01% each. Iodine is what the kelp is for. Rosemary is the natural antioxidant, there to slow fats turning rancid. At those levels they are honest seasoning and not nutrition, and the label deserves credit for saying as much with a number.

The minerals come as sulphates and not chelates, all of them dosed in print, with zinc the largest entry on every label. Sodium selenite is the selenium form here, and it is the commoner of the two the rules allow. Vitamin C is dosed at 300 mg alongside vitamin E at 650 mg, a pairing that also helps keep the fats stable in the bag.

Deboned Norwegian salmon at 16% with dried tuna protein at 15% and dried salmon protein at 6%, so the fish side is built from two species rather than one. Poultry fat at 8% makes it the richest of the three at 19.6% of dry matter, and pea protein appears here where the others use pea starch.

The turkey is £8.00 a kilo. Every variety is sold in 3kg, 10kg and 12kg bags.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition eats about 232 grams a day of the turkey, which comes to £1.86 a day. The daily energy behind that is about 840 kcal (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). The chicken and the salmon are denser, at roughly 219 grams a day for the same dog. On the turkey the label's own table asks 235 grams for a 20kg dog, and 230 grams on the salmon. The waistline settles any disagreement.