Nourish 80/20 Grain Free: Chicken With Turkey, Pollock, Salmon & Sweet Potato review

Two of the three reach our Excellent band and the salmon goes a step further into Outstanding, all of them well clear of the Good band that holds most adult dry food. The label makes the reasons plain. Protein converts to 42.4% of dry matter in every variety, and carbohydrate runs between 26.6% and 29.8% where 46.2% is typical for a dry food. Figures are printed beside the joint pack, the prebiotics and the trace minerals, so none of them is a bare name on a list. The chicken and the duck finish within a hair of each other and the salmon a little ahead of both, so the animal is the thing to choose on, not the ranking.

Ingredients, as declared: 80% Chicken, Turkey, Pollock, & Salmon: Freshly Prepared Chicken (45%), Dried Chicken (9%), Dried Turkey (8%), Freshly Prepared Pollock (8%), Freshly Prepared Turkey (4%), Freshly Prepared Salmon (4%), Chicken Stock (2%).18% Vegetable Medley: Sweet Potato (10.5%), Tapioca, Beet Pulp, Lentils, Chickpeas, Dried Carrot, Dried Spinach, Dried Pumpkin. Minerals: Linseed, Mannanoligosaccharides (MOS, 260 mg/kg), Fructooligosaccharides (FOS, 260 mg/kg), Joint Pack (Glucosamine 178 mg/kg, Methylsulfonylmethane 178 mg/kg, Chondroitin Sulphate 125 mg/kg), Yucca Schidegera Extract, Dried Apple, Dried Seaweed, Dried Marigold, Dried Cranberry, Mixed Herbs (Oregano, Sage, Thyme, Parsley and Marjoram), Dried Camomile, Burdock Root, Aniseed & Fenugreek, Dried Peppermint, Green Tea Extract, Dried Dandelion, Dried Bilberry, Ginseng.

Most of the 80% headline is freshly prepared meat and fish. Freshly prepared entries are largely water, and cooking takes it away. Each recipe backs the fresh share with a dried one, and the analysis says the construction holds. Protein finishes at 42.4% of dry matter, which is high for a kibble by any measure, and carbohydrate stays well under what a dry food normally runs.

The 18% vegetable medley is led by sweet potato, with tapioca, beet pulp, lentils and chickpeas behind it and dried carrot, spinach and pumpkin further down. Tapioca is starch and not much else. The lentils and chickpeas add starch too, plus a bit of fibre and a modest amount of plant protein. There is no cereal anywhere and no white potato either.

The gut and joint entries all arrive with a figure printed beside them. Mannanoligosaccharides and fructooligosaccharides come in at 260 mg/kg each to feed the friendly bacteria, and beet pulp supplies the fibre they work on. The joint pack carries glucosamine and methylsulfonylmethane at 178 mg/kg with chondroitin sulphate at 125 mg/kg. Numbers of that kind put the support in the recipe itself, not on the front of the bag.

Zinc arrives partly as a chelate of amino acids, and iron as a protein-hydrolysate chelate. A chelate is absorbed more easily than a plain sulphate. Methionine is dosed at 1,106 mg per kilo, which is the amino acid a coat leans on hardest, and L-carnitine at 48 mg sits alongside it.

There is a long tail of botanicals, from marigold and cranberry through camomile, burdock root, green tea and ginseng. That is the label's flourish, not its substance. Everything below the minerals is at trace level. Fenugreek in a recipe makes it no better. This food stands on its meat and fish, which is exactly where the weight ought to be.

Freshly prepared chicken at 45% leads, with dried chicken at 9% and dried turkey at 8% giving the recipe its dry backbone. Then come freshly prepared pollock at 8% and freshly prepared turkey and salmon at 4% each. At 15.8% fat on a dry matter basis and 382 kcal per 100g this is the leanest of the three, and sweet potato takes a fractionally bigger share of the medley here at 10.5%. Calcium works out at 1.63% of dry matter, the highest in the range. Anyone bringing up a large breed puppy should weigh that. Zinc is also dosed higher here, at 112 mg per kilo.

The chicken recipe is £4.59 a kilo, with the duck and the salmon at £5.03 a kilo. All three come as a 200g sample, a 1.5kg bag, a 6kg box holding four 1.5kg bags, and a 13.5kg sack.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition eats about 220 grams a day of the chicken, 209 of the duck and 207 of the salmon. We take that dog's need as around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That works out at between £1.01 and £1.05 a day. Let your dog's waistline, not the table on the bag, settle the portion.