Pala Turkey, Duck & Herring review

A label like this gives our scoring very little to guess at. Four animal entries each carry a figure, the plant side runs all the way down to the herbs, and nothing arrives as a category. The recipe lands in our Good band, with nutritional balance and transparency both Outstanding, while protein and processing and value read Good. There is no settled air-dried cohort for us to hold it against, so nothing in that band comes from a comparison; it is what the label itself declares.

Ingredients, as declared: Turkey (39%), Duck (19%), Herring (19%), Egg (3%), spinach, carrot, banana, cabbage, beet, squash, wheat grass, kelp, sea buckthorn, cranberry, blueberry, sea salt, turmeric, black pepper, natural tocopherols with rosemary extract, citrus bioflavonoids. 100% natural. No additives, supplements, flavours or synthetic preservatives.

Dehydration changes what a percentage is worth. The meat here gave up its water before the recipe was weighed. That is why turkey at 39%, duck at 19% and herring at 19% stand for much more real animal than those same figures would on a fresh meat kibble. Much of that weight leaves in the oven. Protein comes out at 37.5% as fed, which converts to 41.7% of dry matter.

The two birds do different jobs. Turkey is the leaner of the pair and the one most often chosen for gentle diets, while duck brings richer meat and a flavour that wins over dogs who pick at their food. Egg at 3% is a small entry doing outsized work, because no protein digests much better than egg does. Herring adds the marine fatty acids the birds cannot supply.

Richness is the headline of the analysis. Fat is declared at 33.6% as fed and 37.3% of dry matter, energy reaches 491 kcal in each 100g, and the estimated carbohydrate stays modest at 10.6% of dry matter. Feed this the way you would feed a concentrate: weigh the first week, then let your hands on the ribs settle the portion.

The plant list is unusually long for a food this meat heavy, running from spinach, carrot and cabbage through beet and squash to sea buckthorn, cranberry and blueberry, with kelp supplying iodine and trace minerals. Turmeric, sea salt and black pepper finish the list, and citrus bioflavonoids sit alongside the tocopherols as antioxidants.

The label states that nothing synthetic goes in, and the preservation is done by natural tocopherols with rosemary extract, the vitamin E family compounds that slow fats turning rancid. The other side of that approach is that no dosed vitamin and mineral panel is printed, so the micronutrition rests on the ingredients rather than on figures you can check line by line.

£42.95 a kilo, with 100g, 400g and 1kg bags available.

Feeding a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition comes to roughly 171 grams a day and £7.35 a day, taking about 840 kcal a day as the target (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). Pala's own chart is a shade lighter again, listing 141 grams for that dog.