Pero High Meat & Grain Free review

Both recipes reach our Good band, with the turkey a little ahead of the pork. What lifts them is straightforward: one named animal at the head of each list, root vegetables instead of cereal underneath, and a label that prints most of what it uses. The middle of the adult dry category holds that same band. Neither of these is a lean sports food, with fat declared at 10% in both, so read them as everyday grain-free feeding rather than as fuel for a dog running all day.

Ingredients, as declared: Turkey 39% (Turkey Meal 23%, Fresh Turkey 15%), Potato 23%, Sweet Potato 19%, Cranberries 0.4%, Pure Chicken Oil, Alfalfa, Minerals, Chicken Gravy, Yeast Extract, Linseed, Salmon Oil, Peas, Malt Extract, Prebiotic MOS, Prebiotic FOS, Yucca Extract, Glucosamine 195 mg/kg, Chondroitin 90 mg/kg

Each recipe leads with one animal and prints how it is put together. Turkey at 39% is 23% turkey meal and 15% fresh turkey; pork at 40% is 19% pork meal and 21% fresh pork. In any finished kibble the meal does the heavy lifting, because it goes in already dry. Fresh meat is water for the most part, and the oven removes it. Protein converts to 26.1% of dry matter in the turkey and 27.2% in the pork.

The starch side is where the grain-free promise is actually kept. The turkey recipe uses potato at 23% and sweet potato at 19%; the pork recipe leans on sweet potato at 36% with peas behind it. Both are the sort of root starch a dog handles comfortably. Estimated carbohydrate lands at 52.6% of dry matter in the turkey and 47.7% in the pork, against 46.2% for the typical adult dry food. The vegetables are doing real work in both bowls.

The main added fat in each recipe is chicken oil, and palatability comes from chicken gravy in the turkey and chicken digest in the pork. That is worth knowing if you reached for the pork specifically to get away from poultry, because chicken stays in the small print even though no chicken meat appears anywhere on the list.

Omega 3s come from two directions, linseed for the plant form and salmon oil for the marine one, which is the more useful pairing of the two and the reason neither recipe is fish free. Alfalfa adds fibre along with a spread of minerals. The two prebiotics, MOS and FOS, are there to feed the gut's own bacteria, and they contribute no nutrition themselves.

The joint pair appears on both labels, though only the turkey quantifies it, at glucosamine 195 mg and chondroitin 90 mg per kilo. Zinc comes partly as an amino acid chelate at 333 mg per kilo in each recipe, a form that generally absorbs better than an oxide. The pork recipe goes a step further with inactivated selenised yeast in place of sodium selenite and rosemary extract as its antioxidant. Turkey calcium works out at 2.36% of dry matter, on the generous side for an adult food, while the pork label does not declare it.

Turkey at 39%, from 23% turkey meal and 15% fresh turkey, on potato at 23% and sweet potato at 19% with cranberries at 0.4%. This is the recipe that prints its joint doses, glucosamine at 195 mg and chondroitin at 90 mg per kilo. Of the two, this is the one with a declared moisture figure and a calcium reading, at 2.36% of dry matter. Transparency reads Outstanding here, value and protein and processing both read Good, and nutritional balance reads Average.

The turkey is £5.10 a kilo and the pork £4.85, each sold as a trial pack, a 2kg bag or a 12kg bag.

Take about 840 kcal a day for a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). The turkey comes to roughly 252 grams and £1.28 a day, the pork to roughly 257 grams and £1.25. The pork label's own table begins at 10kg and asks 175 to 275 grams for a dog of 10kg to 15kg, so let the dog's shape settle any difference between the two guides.