Opti Life Adult: Mini review

The four share our Good band, which is unusual for a range that varies this much inside. Dehydrated chicken at the head of every list does most of the lifting, since dehydrated meat has already lost its water and the percentage on the bag survives the oven. Around it sit printed fibre percentages, a mineral and vitamin panel dosed entry by entry, and glucosamine stated rather than implied. Our scoring puts a typical adult dry food in that same Good band, so these four keep level with the middle of the shelf. Two things stop the band rising: neither the animal fat nor the hydrolysed protein is named, and cellulose stands in for fibre from whole vegetables.

Ingredients, as declared: chicken (dehydrated, 35%), rice (25%), rice flour, animal fat, vegetable fibres (cellulose 4%, beet pulp 1%), linseed, hydrolysed animal proteins, salmon oil, brewer's yeast, minerals, krill, FOS (0.5%), dried whole eggs, MOS (0.1%), sea algae (Ascophyllum nodosum), salts of fatty acids (butyric acid), glucosamine 500 mg/kg, rosemary (18 mg/kg), green tea (12 mg/kg).

The headline is dehydrated chicken, and the percentage moves with the recipe: 40% on Active, 35% on Mini, 30% on Medium and 28% on Maxi. The meat goes on the scales with its water already gone, so those figures survive cooking. A fresh-meat headline does not manage that. These read straighter than they look.

Rice and rice flour sit immediately behind the chicken, usually at a percentage close to it, and the effect on the analysis is dramatic. Carbohydrate lands at 29.3% of dry matter on Active, where the typical adult dry food runs at 46.2%, and climbs to 47.8% on Maxi. Protein runs the same way, from 34.8% of dry matter down to 26.6%. The four share a recipe, not a nutritional profile.

Fibre comes from cellulose at 4% with beet pulp at 1% behind it on three of the recipes, and cellulose alone on Maxi. Beet pulp is a fermentable fibre a gut can put to use, whereas cellulose is a purified powder that passes through largely untouched, doing its work by bulk. It is a legitimate choice and a processed one, and the label at least prints how much is in there.

Two entries stop short of naming an animal. Animal fat is doing real nutritional work here, and the hydrolysed animal proteins are what make the kibble taste worth eating. A dog with no particular sensitivity will never notice, but the pair is the reason a chicken-led recipe here cannot be treated as a single-protein diet.

The rest is thoughtfully assembled. Linseed is there for plant omega 3s and salmon oil for the marine kind, and dried whole eggs add a highly usable protein. Brewer's yeast brings B vitamins, sea algae is where the iodine and trace minerals come from, and FOS and MOS feed the gut's own bacteria. Taurine is dosed on every bag, 550 mg on the Medium and 1100 mg on the other three, and rosemary and green tea close each list as the antioxidant preservatives.

A small-breed kibble with the second highest meat share, dehydrated chicken at 35% against rice at 25%, giving 29.0% protein, 18.0% fat and 420 kcal per 100g with carbohydrate at 38.0% of dry matter. It is also the most interesting label of the four. Krill joins the fish oils, and FOS is dosed at 0.5% where the other three carry 0.1%. Salts of fatty acids from butyric acid are included as well, the short-chain fat a large intestine uses as fuel.

£4.54 a kilo across the four. Medium is sold in a 2.5kg bag and the largest size, Mini in 2.5kg and 7.5kg bags, and Active and Maxi in the largest size only.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition eats between 191 and 210 grams a day, and which end of that range depends on the recipe in the bowl. The target is around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That works out at between £0.87 and £0.95 a day, and the denser Active recipe is the one that goes furthest per gram.