Nutriment Complete Puppy review

Our Excellent band is where this one settles. Puppy raw is a fierce category, and its middle-of-the-road food already reaches our Outstanding band, so the distance here is a matter of degree, with no fault to point at. The meat share is high, the offal is real and the carbohydrate estimate barely registers. Its protein and processing and its nutritional balance both read Outstanding, with transparency Good and value Excellent.

Ingredients, as declared: 90% Fresh Meat, Offal and Bone / 10% Vegetables and Superfoods / 0% Grain or filler, 60% Chicken with Bone, 10% Beef Green Tripe 10% Beef Heart, 5% Beef Liver, 5% Beef Kidney, 10% Veg & Superfoods (Carrot, Butternut Squash, Broccoli, Kale, Sesame Seeds, Chia Seeds, Sunflower Seeds, Salmon Oil, Wheatgerm Oil, Chicory Powder, Blueberry Powder, Spirulina).

That 90 to 10 split is the headline here, and it means something. Adult recipes in this family give a larger share to vegetables, and the puppy version claws that back for meat, offal and bone. For a dog laying down muscle and skeleton at speed, that is the right instinct.

Chicken with bone at 60% does the heavy lifting. It is the easiest meat to start a young dog on, highly digestible and reliably eaten, with the bone in the grind carrying the calcium rather than a mineral supplement doing it. Chicken is popular enough that it heads the list of meats blamed when a dog proves intolerant of something. That is worth holding in mind.

The offal share is where this recipe pulls ahead of the brand's adult labels. Beef green tripe at 10% brings its own enzymes and friendly bacteria, having never been cleaned or bleached. Beef heart at 10% is dense muscle meat. Liver and kidney at 5% each are the micronutrient engine, with liver in particular rich in vitamin A, B12, copper and selenium in a form a puppy digests easily.

The remaining tenth is the blend Nutriment puts across its range. Carrot and butternut squash, kale and broccoli make the vegetable side; sesame, chia and sunflower seeds follow; then wheatgerm oil, salmon oil, chicory powder, spirulina and blueberry powder. Chicory root is the quietly useful one, since its inulin acts as both a soluble fibre and a prebiotic. The long-chain omega 3 fats for brain and eye development come from the salmon oil.

Two of those entries deserve to be said plainly. The salmon oil means fish is in the bowl. Wheat is where the wheatgerm oil comes from. That 0% grain line on the pack front speaks to cereal bulk, and a household avoiding wheat outright should know it before ordering.

The analysis is a rich one. Protein converts to 43.7% of dry matter and fat to 42.5%, with carbohydrate estimated at 3.1% and crude ash at 8.2%. That last figure is consistent with a bone-in grind, though no bone percentage or calcium figure is printed. Energy works out at 167 kcal per 100g on our estimate from the declared analysis, a little above the 155 kcal typical for puppy raw, so portions look smaller than a lighter mince would need.

£5.35 a kilo, in 500g and 1.4kg packs.

We have not put a day rate against this one. A puppy's daily portion rises week by week, and a single figure would misrepresent most of the months you feed it. The label's own weight guide is the better starting point, adjusted as the dog grows.