Nutriment Raw Nuggets Senior: Turkey & Salmon review

This food sits in our Outstanding band. So does the typical raw food, because raw is a category where high meat content and short, honest labels are the norm. Even in that company this recipe clears the typical raw food's mark, so its band is earned against strong competition.

Ingredients, as declared: Turkey 43% (Muscle meat), Salmon 21%, Beef 20% (Kidney, Liver), Pumpkin, Broccoli, Chicory, Kelp, Blueberry, Coconut Oil, Minerals, Cellulose, Algae Oil, Green Lipped Mussel, Chondroitin Sulphate, L-carnitine. Minerals: 3a672a / Vitamin A 6,500 IU/kg, 3a671 / Vitamin D3 650 IU/kg, 3a700 / Vitamin E 100 mg/kg, 3b103 / Iron 50 mg/kg, 3b202 / Iodine 0.78 mg/kg, 3b405 / Copper 2.5 mg/kg, 3b406 / Copper 2.5 mg/kg, 3b503 / Manganese 20 mg/kg, 3b605 / Zinc 50 mg/kg, 3b801 / Selenium 0.15 mg/kg

Turkey muscle meat at 43% leads the label, with salmon at 21% behind it and beef at 20% supplied as kidney and liver. Those organs are compact stores of the micronutrition that plain muscle meat lacks, so their share is doing genuine work here rather than padding the meat total. Protein converts to 45.1% of dry matter, which is the analysis of a recipe that is meat first and everything else second.

The ingredient list is where the senior brief actually shows up, not the front of the pack. Green lipped mussel and chondroitin sulphate are there for ageing joints, and L-carnitine helps an older body keep turning fat into fuel. Salmon with algae oil supplies the omega 3s that work on the same joints from another direction. Not one of them carries a printed dose. Take them as sensible inclusions woven into the recipe, not as measured supplements.

The plant fraction is pumpkin and broccoli first, then chicory, kelp and blueberry, with cellulose adding a measure of insoluble fibre. Gentle, reliable fibre earns its keep in a senior bowl, where digestion often appreciates the help. It shows up in the sums too: carbohydrate converts to 10.2% of dry matter, against the 5.0% typical for raw food, which is the more generous vegetable share at work rather than any starch. The label carries no grain at all.

The vitamin and mineral panel is itemised and dosed in print, from vitamin D3 at 650 IU/kg and vitamin E at 100 mg/kg through to zinc at 50 mg/kg and selenium at 0.15 mg/kg. That level of declaration is the mark of a raw food formulated as a complete meal, not a butcher's mince that leaves the balancing to you.

£6.59 a kilo, sold as a 1kg pack of frozen nuggets.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition eats roughly 579 grams a day, at around £3.82. That assumes about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate) and the recipe's estimated energy figure. The label itself asks 300 to 460 grams of nuggets a day for a 15kg dog. Begin between those figures and adjust as the waistline tells you.