Omni Puppy review

The Average band reading needs explaining, because it is not the whole story of this bag. Our scoring rewards named animal ingredients and rewards a label that declares its figures, and this recipe has no animal ingredients by design while leaving both ash and moisture unprinted. Two of the things that normally lift a score are therefore simply not available to it.

Protein and processing reads Poor behind that. Transparency reads Good. For a household committed to plant based feeding, the useful reading is the detail under the band, and that detail beats the headline: taurine, methionine and L-carnitine are all added, not left to chance. The supplement panel is doing the specific work a meat free diet asks for, and the omega 3 comes from algae instead of being quietly skipped.

Ingredients, as declared: Potato Protein, Hi-Pro Soya, Potato, Brown Rice, Dried Yeasts, Sunflower Oil, Oats, Peas, Pea Protein, Carrot Flakes, Hydrolysed Vegetables, Rapeseed Oil, Lentils, Minerals, Pea Starch, Sweet Potato, Micro Algae, Blueberries, Prebiotic FOS, Cranberries, Pumpkin.

The protein comes from three plant sources working together. Potato protein leads, Hi-Pro Soya sits second, and pea protein appears further down, all of them refined fractions. Plant proteins are generally less digestible than meat proteins and their amino acid profiles are narrower. This diet accepts that trade openly, and it is precisely why the added methionine and taurine on the panel matter.

The carbohydrate side is broad: potato, brown rice, oats, peas, lentils, pea starch and sweet potato all appear. By our own read of the recipe, carbohydrate sources account for an estimated 78.8% of the food as fed, with the meat share at zero by design. This is a bowl built on starch and refined plant protein in place of the usual meat and starch split.

Fats come from sunflower oil and rapeseed oil, both sensible choices, with sunflower oil bringing natural vitamin E and rapeseed oil a favourable fatty acid balance. The genuinely thoughtful entry is micro algae, which is where the long chain omega 3 in this recipe comes from. Algae is where fish get theirs in the first place, so a plant based food that includes it is not making do with linseed and hoping.

Dried yeasts and hydrolysed vegetables are in there for palatability, and hydrolysed vegetables is a broad term that tells you nothing about which plants are involved. Carrot flakes, blueberries, cranberries and pumpkin close the list as garnish, and prebiotic FOS is named for the gut.

The analysis is where this label falls short of what a growth food should print. Protein at 30.0%, fat at 12.0% and fibre at 3.0% are given as fed, and then it stops. With no ash and no moisture there is no dry matter column to build, so none of these figures can be compared like for like against another puppy food. There is no calcium figure at all either, on a bag listed for breeds up to giant. The energy figure of 345 kcal per 100g is our estimate rather than a declaration.

Nothing else on this label is as strong as the supplement panel. Vitamin A, D3 and vitamin E at 245 iu are declared, methionine is supplemented, taurine is added in quantity and L-carnitine comes in at 500 mg per kilo. Zinc arrives in both a sulphate and a glycine chelate form. The selenium is the organic form and not sodium selenite, the better of the two permitted options and a choice a lot of makers do not bother with.

£6.60 a kilo, sold in 2kg, 6kg and 10kg bags.

Puppy rations climb steeply and then level out, so read the amount off the pack's chart and not off a scoop chosen once. Omni's own guide starts at 17g a day for a weaning pup and reaches 758g a day at its widest point, which shows how far the number travels before a dog is fully grown.