Natures Menu Complete & Balanced 60/40 Minced Block: Chicken with Salmon review

The beef and the tripe blocks finish in our Outstanding band, with the chicken and the lamb just behind in Excellent. They are close enough together that your dog's tastes should make the choice. Raw is the hardest category we assess, and a typical raw food sits in that same Outstanding band. What distance remains here comes from the forty per cent that is not meat, and not from anything the label hides. Protein and processing and transparency read Outstanding on every recipe, and nutritional balance runs from Good on the lamb up to Outstanding. Value reads Outstanding on the beef and the tripe, with Excellent on the other two.

Ingredients, as declared: Chicken 55%, Brown Rice 19%, Peas 8%, Salmon 5%, Carrots 5%, Swede 5%, Pea Fibre, Minerals, Yucca, Green Tea

The arithmetic never changes. Named meat and fish to 60%, then brown rice, peas at 8%, carrots and swede at 5% apiece, and a short tail of pea fibre, added minerals, yucca and green tea. Nothing on the list is vague, every animal is named, and the entries that matter all carry a percentage.

Brown rice is the ingredient that defines this range, sitting between 16% and 19% depending on the recipe. Being a whole grain, it brings fibre and B vitamins along with its starch. That is often why a dog who struggles on a very rich bowl settles happily here. None of the four blocks is grain free.

Minerals are added and printed per kilo, itemised down to zinc at 50.1mg and copper at 7.2mg. Selenium arrives as an inactivated selenised yeast, the organic form, which is generally regarded as better taken up than the plain selenite salt that most labels use. It is a small detail, and a telling one about the care taken over the panel.

The vegetable work falls to carrots and swede, with peas bringing a little plant protein and fibre. Stool odour is what the yucca is there for, and it has a long reputation on that score. Green tea brings antioxidants, and pea fibre is the quiet binder holding a mince of this build together in the block.

The analyses sit lower in protein and fat than an all meat raw food, as you would expect. Protein converts to between 32.4% and 37.9% of dry matter and fat to between 20.7% and 27.3%. Energy runs from 130 to 165 kcal per 100g, so the lighter recipes need noticeably bigger portions than the richer ones, and a swap between them is worth a moment with the scales.

Chicken carries the meat almost single handed at 55%, with salmon at 5% for its oils. This is the leanest and lightest block, fat converting to 20.7% of dry matter at 130 kcal per 100g. A dog inclined to put weight on will do well on it, though portions run largest in the range.

Every recipe is £6.63 a kilo, and the blocks come at 300g each.

For a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition needing about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate), the range feeds at between £3.38 and £4.28 a day. The Beef and Chicken is the most concentrated of the four at 509 grams a day, while the Chicken with Salmon needs 646 grams to reach the same energy.