NutriPaw Freeze Dried Raw Food: Beef review

Our Outstanding band takes the chicken, and our Excellent band the beef, one shelf under. The typical freeze dried food sits in our Outstanding band as well, and that is the point worth holding on to. The format sets a high bar, and both of these are written to it on six lines of ingredients. Both labels read Outstanding for protein and processing and for transparency. The chicken adds Outstanding nutritional balance and Outstanding value, the beef Good and Excellent, so the chicken takes the stronger reading and the beef the richer analysis.

Ingredients, as declared: Beef 80%, Sweet Potato 6%, Carrot 4.5%, Pea 3%, Apple 2%, Strawberry 2%

Six ingredients, all named, all weighed. The meat leads at 80%, either beef or chicken depending on the bag. Sweet potato follows at 6%, then carrot at 4.5%, pea at 3% and apple at 2%. The berry is strawberry on the beef and blackberry on the chicken, both at 2%. There is no filler in either bag because there is nowhere for one to hide.

Freeze drying is what allows that 80% to mean something. The water goes at low temperature and is never cooked off, so the meat in the pack stays concentrated. Portions that come out of it are small by the standards of any other format.

The two analyses part company sharply. Before you pick one, it helps to understand why. The beef declares 26.5% protein and 48.0% fat of dry matter with ash at 17.3%, a profile that reads as fat and bone rich, and 527 kcal in every 100g. The chicken runs the other way at 56.7% protein and 24.7% fat, with ash down at 10.3% and 447 kcal. Both are complete foods for an adult dog, but they suit different dogs, the beef one with real work in its day and the chicken one that puts weight on easily.

Whole peas are what the label declares here rather than pea protein or pea flour, and the distinction matters. Fibre and a spread of micronutrients come with the whole form. A refined pea protein would lift the protein figure without adding any more animal to the bowl. Sweet potato and carrot do similarly honest work, and the single berry on each label is there for interest.

The added panel is dosed per kilo. Vitamin A comes in at 7500 IU, vitamin D3 at 250 IU and vitamin E at 50mg, with zinc at 15mg, iron at 10mg, manganese at 2.5mg, copper at 1.5mg and iodine at 0.1mg. Selenium comes as an inactivated selenised yeast at 0.02mg. That is the better absorbed of the two permitted forms. Rosemary oil extract at 4mg keeps the fats from turning. Zinc arrives as a chelate of protein hydrolysates, a well absorbed form. Its protein source goes unnamed, and on an otherwise plain list that is the one line an elimination trial should account for. Biotin at 0.1mg appears on the beef label only.

Beef at 80% with strawberry as its berry, and by some distance the richer of the two. Fat converts to 48.0% of dry matter against 26.5% protein, energy reaches 527 kcal per 100g and ash sits at 17.3%, which points to a generous bone share in the mix. Biotin appears on this panel and not on the chicken's.

£42.66 a kilo on both recipes, sold in 500g, 1kg, 2kg and 4kg packs.

Take a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition at about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That is roughly 159 grams a day of the Beef. The Chicken works out at 188 grams. That works out at about £6.80 a day on the Beef and £8.02 a day on the Chicken.