Nutriment Freeze Dried Food: Chicken review

The beef and the chicken reach our Outstanding band, with the lamb a step below in Excellent, three labels built to the same standard and separated by their analyses. The typical freeze dried food occupies that band as well, so the beef and the chicken keep pace with a strong field and the lamb stays close behind them in Excellent. Protein and processing and transparency read Outstanding on all three, and value is Outstanding on the beef and the chicken with Excellent on the lamb. Nutritional balance follows the same split, Good on the lamb and Outstanding on the other two, so the readings favour the beef and the chicken without ruling the lamb out. Let the analysis and your dog's history decide instead.

Ingredients, as declared: Chicken (75%), Pumpkin (8%), Carrot (7.5%), Courgette (2.75%), Cranberry (2.5%), Minerals (1.715%), Dried seaweed (0.6%), Yeast product (as a source of prebiotic MOS and beta glucans, 0.075%), Dried chicory root (as a source of prebiotic FOS, 0.075%), Ginger (0.25%), Turmeric (0.25%), Beet Pulp (0.1%), Glucosamine (0.05%), Chondroitin sulphate (0.05%), Yucca schidigera extract (0.025%), Boswellia (0.025%), Dried dandelion root (0.005%), Green tea powder (0.005%), Dried hawthorn leaf (0.005%) Black Pepper (0.0025%).

Every recipe is 75% of its named animal, with nothing else animal on the list. Egg and fish oil are absent from all three. So is unnamed fat. That is what makes each one workable during an exclusion trial. The one caveat sits in the added panel, where the zinc comes as a chelate of protein hydrolysates without a stated source, a detail worth knowing if the trial is a strict one.

Freeze drying is why 75% can mean what it says. The water leaves at low temperature, so the pack holds the raw ingredient in concentrated form. That is also why the daily amount looks so modest next to a bag of kibble.

The three analyses are strikingly different from one another. The chicken is protein forward at 57.0% of dry matter with fat at 18.1%, and the beef sits in the middle at 40.4% protein and 33.7% fat. The lamb reverses the pattern completely, with fat at 58.2% of dry matter against 23.5% protein and 577 kcal in every 100g. That makes the lamb a food for a dog burning real energy and the chicken the steadier everyday choice, and it is the clearest reason to treat these as three foods rather than three flavours.

Pumpkin is the constant on the plant side, at 8% in the beef and chicken and 7.5% in the lamb. Each recipe pairs it with its own greens and fruit: broccoli, apple and raspberry on the beef, carrot, courgette and cranberry on the chicken, broccoli, spinach and blueberry on the lamb. Seaweed and beet pulp appear in small amounts behind them, and the whole plant side is declared to two and three decimal places, which tells you something about how carefully this label was written.

Each list finishes with what amounts to a herb cabinet. The beef and chicken carry ginger and turmeric at 0.25% each with black pepper at 0.0025%, a combination that has travelled together for centuries, and boswellia joins them at 0.025%. The lamb goes a different way entirely, with chamomile, nettle, rosehip, parsley and lemon balm at trace level. None of these move the analysis, but each one has been chosen.

Joint support arrives with figures attached: glucosamine and chondroitin sulphate at 0.05% each on all three recipes, with yucca schidigera at 0.025% behind them. Two prebiotics share the work: a yeast product supplying MOS and beta glucans at 0.075%, and dried chicory root supplying FOS at the same level. Each works on the large intestine's good bacteria in its own way.

The added panel is dosed throughout: vitamin A at 7500 IU, vitamin D3 at 250 IU and vitamin E at 50mg, with zinc at 15mg, iron at 10mg, manganese at 2.5mg and copper at 1.5mg. Selenium comes through a selenised yeast at 0.02mg, tocopherols at 150mg hold the fats steady and rosemary oil extract at 4mg finishes the list.

Chicken at 75% on a base of pumpkin at 8% and carrot at 7.5%, with courgette at 2.75% and cranberry at 2.5%. It is the leanest of the three by a wide margin, protein converting to 57.0% of dry matter against 18.1% fat, so the bowl holds more of this than of either of the others.

£53.29 a kilo on all three recipes, sold in 225g packs.

For a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition, the daily energy need is about 840 kcal (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That comes to roughly 146 grams a day of the lamb, 190 of the beef and 221 of the chicken. By cost the lamb is about £7.76 a day, the beef £10.12 and the chicken £11.79. The difference follows how much energy each recipe packs into a gram.