Naturo Puppy Grain Free Dry review

Good is where this kibble comes out, and that is also where the puppy dry field has its middle. Read it as clearing the centre of a crowded category.

Outstanding is the transparency reading, with Good on protein and processing, on nutritional balance and on value. That even spread makes sense on the label. The chicken share is high and itemised down to the form each part arrives in. What keeps protein and processing from reading higher is the starch reading and the poultry fat that names no bird.

Ingredients, as declared: Chicken 50% (Fresh Chicken 25%, Chicken Meat Meal 18%, Chicken Powder 5%, Chicken Digest 2%), Sweet Potato (26%), Dried Peas (5%), Dried Sugar Beet, Poultry Fat (4%), Pea Starch, Dried Carrot (2%), Whole Linseed (2%), Minerals, Tomato Pomace (0.5%), Seaweed Meal, Fructo-oligosaccharides (FOS) (0.1%), Mannan-oligosaccharides (MOS) (0.1%), Glucosamine, Chondroitin, MSM, Extract of Yucca Schidigera (0.02%), Rosemary Extract

The chicken is broken into four parts and each is weighed. Fresh chicken at 25% carries most of its water, so it shrinks considerably in the oven. Chicken meat meal at 18% has already been dried. Almost all of its printed share reaches the finished kibble, and it does much of the real protein work. Chicken powder at 5% is a further dried form, and chicken digest at 2% is a palatant, a small chicken derived ingredient that makes the kibble taste of something.

After the meat, the largest single entry is sweet potato at 26%. Dried peas at 5%, pea starch and dried sugar beet come behind it. That is a lot of the bag before the extras start, and carbohydrate converts to an estimated 43.0% of dry matter, higher than the 39.0% of the typical puppy kibble. Sugar beet pulp is there as a fibre source rather than as a sweetener, since the sugar is stripped out before it reaches the recipe.

Poultry fat at 4% is the one entry that steps back from the precision elsewhere. It is a perfectly normal energy source, but poultry covers chicken, turkey and duck alike. An owner whose pup is on a genuine exclusion diet cannot treat this bag as chicken only, even though every meat named on it is chicken.

The analysis is declared for protein at 28.0%, fat at 13.0%, fibre at 3.0% and ash at 8.5%, but moisture is left off. The dry matter conversions in the table therefore run on the 8% that kibble is usually taken to carry. Protein reads 30.4% of dry matter on that basis. Energy at 366 kcal per 100g is a declared figure, not an estimate. It sits a little under the 376 typical of the category, so portions look slightly larger than for a very dense bag.

The finishing list is a good one for a growth food. Whole linseed at 2% brings plant omega 3 and dried carrot at 2% adds fibre and antioxidants. Behind them come tomato pomace at 0.5% and seaweed meal, with FOS and MOS at 0.1% each giving the gut bacteria something to work with. Glucosamine, chondroitin and MSM are all present but undosed, which is the one place a keen label reader will want more.

The added vitamin and trace mineral panel is printed per kilo. Vitamin E is at 500mg, zinc from oxide at 70mg and from a chelate at 30mg, iron at 50mg, manganese at 50mg, copper at 7.5mg, iodine at 2mg and selenium at 0.18mg. Closing the recipe is rosemary extract, a natural antioxidant doing the job a synthetic preservative would.

£5.50 a kilo, sold in 2kg bags.

At the bottom the label's chart asks 110g a day for a 5kg pup, and at the top it reaches 575g to 586g. A growing dog's requirement keeps moving. Read the chart against the weight your pup is now and the adult size you are expecting, not against the amount that suited them last month.