Naturo Adult Grain Free Dry: Chicken and Potato with Vegetables review

The chicken reaches our Good band, level with the middle of adult dry food, and the turkey finishes a step above it in Excellent. Both bags do it the same way: half the recipe is declared as one named bird, most of it as meal. The label prints the split instead of rolling it into a single figure. Protein converts to 32.6% of dry matter and estimated carbohydrate to 40.8%, under the 46.2% a typical adult dry food carries. Protein and processing and nutritional balance read Good on both bags, with transparency Outstanding on each and value tracking the overall, Good on the chicken and Excellent on the turkey. Moisture is not printed on either label, so those dry matter figures assume the usual 8% for a kibble.

Ingredients, as declared: Chicken (50%) (Chicken Meat Meal 28%, Fresh Chicken 20%, Chicken Digest 2%), Potato (26%), Poultry Fat (5.5%), Dried Sugar Beet, Pea Starch (3%), Dried Peas (3%), Dried Carrot (2%), Whole Linseed (2%), Tomato Pomace (0.5%), Seaweed Meal, Brewers Yeast, Fructo-oligosaccharides (FOS) (0.1%), Mannan-oligosaccharides (MOS) (0.1%), Glucosamine, MSM, Chondroitin, Rosemary Extract, Extract of Yucca Schidigera (0.02%)

The 50% headline is built from three parts on both labels. In the chicken bag it is chicken meat meal at 28%, fresh chicken at 20% and chicken digest at 2%. In the turkey bag it is turkey meat meal at 29.6%, fresh turkey at 18% and turkey digest at 2.4%. Meal survives the oven more or less intact. In both bags it does most of the protein work, while the fresh share brings flavour and moisture.

Potato at 26% is the starch, with pea starch and dried peas at 3% each behind it and dried sugar beet supplying fibre. Potato is a straightforward, gently digested carbohydrate, and using it in place of cereal is the whole point of these two bags. It does mean the plant side is still substantial, with carbohydrate estimated at 40.8% of dry matter.

Poultry fat is the entry that keeps these from being single species recipes. The chicken bag declares it at 5.5% and the turkey bag at 4%. The word covers any domestic bird, so this entry cannot settle whether chicken is your dog's problem.

The supporting cast is almost identical on both. Dried carrot at 2% and tomato pomace at 0.5% add fibre and antioxidants, and seaweed meal supplies iodine and trace minerals. Whole linseed at 2% is the plant form of omega 3. The prebiotics are FOS and MOS at 0.1% each, and they feed gut bacteria, not the dog. Yucca extract at 0.02% is in there to help with the smell at the other end.

Glucosamine, chondroitin and MSM appear near the end of both lists without amounts attached, so you can see the intent but not the dose. The mineral panel is more forthcoming, with 70 mg of zinc sulphate joined by 30 mg of zinc as a chelate. The chelated form is the easier of the two to absorb, and selenium is declared in both an inorganic and an organic form.

Chicken at 50%, made up of chicken meat meal at 28%, fresh chicken at 20% and chicken digest at 2%, with poultry fat at 5.5%, the higher of the two. Pea starch and dried peas at 3% each and dried carrot at 2% fill in behind the potato. Every pillar bar value reads the same band as the turkey's, and the analysis panel and the energy figure are the same on both.

£4.60 a kilo for both recipes, sold in 2kg and 10kg bags.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition needs about 230 grams a day, which comes to £1.06. That works from an allowance of about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). For a dog of 10kg to 20kg the maker's table asks 160 to 265 grams. Where in that range your own dog belongs is a matter of their condition.