Orijen Puppy review

Our reading puts this one in our Excellent band, a rung above the Good band where the middle of the puppy dry field sits. The label builds that distance instead of claiming it. Carbohydrate converts to 19.3% of dry matter where the typical puppy kibble runs at 39.0%, and meat and fish fill the room starch would have taken, with egg alongside. Nutritional balance is Outstanding, and transparency reads the same. Protein and processing reads Good with value at Excellent, in step with the food overall, and the position rests on the whole label, not one flourish.

Ingredients, as declared: Fresh chicken (23%), raw turkey (10%), fresh chicken giblets (liver, heart) (8%), raw whole herring (6%), raw whole hake (5%), fresh eggs (5%), dehydrated chicken (4%), dehydrated turkey (4%), dehydrated mackerel (4%), dehydrated sardine (4%), dehydrated herring (4%), chicken fat (4%), whole red lentils, whole peas, whole green lentils, whole chickpeas, lentil fibre, whole pinto beans, whole navy beans, raw turkey liver (2%), pollock oil (2%), pea starch, dried kelp, fresh whole pumpkin, fresh whole butternut squash, fresh whole zucchini, fresh whole carrots, fresh whole apples, fresh whole pears, dried chicory root, fresh kale, fresh spinach, fresh beet greens, fresh turnip greens, whole cranberries, whole blueberries, whole saskatoon berries, turmeric, milk thistle, burdock root, lavender, marshmallow root, rosehips.

The list opens with fresh chicken at 23%, then raw turkey at 10% and fresh chicken giblets at 8%. Fresh meat is mostly water, so those shares shrink a good deal by the time the kibble is finished. That is why the dehydrated block behind them matters so much. Chicken and turkey at 4% each, then mackerel, sardine and herring at 4% apiece, have already given up their water, so they carry their protein straight through. On a dry matter basis the analysis reads 43.2% protein.

Four sea fish appear here. Raw whole herring at 6% and raw whole hake at 5% join the dehydrated mackerel, sardine and herring, and pollock oil at 2% tops up the marine fats. Whole fish carries its oils and minerals and its amino acids in the one ingredient, with nothing bolted on separately.

The offal is named down to the parts, with chicken giblets given as liver and heart, and raw turkey liver returning at 2% further down. Liver packs more nutrition per gram than almost anything you can put in a bowl, heavy in vitamin B12 and vitamin A, with copper and selenium alongside. Fresh eggs at 5% add a complete and easily used protein next to it.

The starch side is a bank of pulses: whole red lentils, peas, green lentils and chickpeas, then lentil fibre, pinto beans and navy beans, with a little pea starch. Along with their carbohydrate, whole pulses bring fibre and B vitamins, plus iron and zinc. That is a better trade than refined starch, and the total is modest anyway at 19.3% of dry matter.

Calcium is printed, and at 1.59% of dry matter it sits where a growth food should sit, which makes it the most useful line on the whole panel. The maker lists this recipe for toy dogs through to giant ones, and the printed calcium figure is what backs that breadth up.

The label's tail reads like a market stall. Pumpkin, butternut squash, courgette, carrots, apples and pears come first, then kale, spinach, beet greens and turnip greens, three kinds of berry, turmeric, milk thistle and burdock root. Treat all of it as seasoning. The dosed panel is where the real work happens. Zinc is dosed at 105mg and copper at 11mg per kilo, with vitamin A at 3750 IU, vitamin D3 at 500 IU and vitamin E at 110 IU. A live Enterococcus faecium culture is dosed in the billions of colony forming units per kilo for the gut.

Preservation is handled naturally, with tocopherol extract at 121mg and rosemary extract at 80mg per kilo doing the job that synthetic antioxidants do elsewhere. Citric acid at 40mg supports them.

£8.51 a kilo, sold in 340g, 2kg, 6kg and 11.4kg bags.

A growing pup's daily ration keeps moving, so take the maker's chart for the expected adult weight as your start and revise it as the weeks go by. That chart reaches 290g a day for a pup on course for a 30kg adult.