Pets Love Fresh Adult: Simply Chicken review

All four recipes take a place in our Good band, with barely anything between them on our scoring. Nutritional balance reads Outstanding right across the four, with transparency Excellent and protein and processing Good, so nothing is missing from any of these bowls. Fresh feeding is a strong field, and the typical fresh recipe lands in our Outstanding band. Finishing below that mark is a comment on the company being kept, and no complaint about the food itself.

Ingredients, as declared: Chicken Meat 80%, Chicken Heart 10%, Chicory pulp, Cranberry powder, Vitamins & Minerals, Herbs (botanical mix)

In a fresh food the meat percentage means what it says, because the water it is weighed with is still in the tub when it reaches you. Moisture is declared at 72.5% on the beef and chicken and 71.5% on the duck and pork. Subtract the water and you can see how meat led these recipes are. Protein converts to 50.9% of dry matter on the beef and chicken, 45.6% on the pork and 38.6% on the duck.

The second animal entry is where the recipes differ in character. Chicken heart and pork heart are working muscle, dense in the amino acids a hard used muscle needs, while beef offal and duck offal cover the organ side of the animal. Organ meat is where much of a carcass's micronutrition sits, so a tenth of the bowl given to it does more than a tenth of the work. The one thing left open is which organs the word offal covers, since neither label breaks it down.

The plant side is deliberately tiny. Chicory pulp carries inulin, food for the bacteria that work in the large intestine. Cranberry powder adds antioxidants, and it is the berry owners reach for when the urinary tract is on their mind. Neither is there for bulk, which is why the estimated carbohydrate stays between 7.3% and 14.0% of dry matter across the range.

Vitamins and minerals arrive as a single line in the composition instead of a dosed panel, so a complete food's supplementation is present but not itemised. The herb mix is described only as botanical, and a general term like that can cover a great deal of ground. Neither gap changes what the dog eats, though both are worth a question to the maker if you like reading a label all the way down.

These are rich bowls by design. Fat runs from 29.1% of dry matter on the beef and chicken up to 35.1% on the duck. The energy figures of 124 to 138 kcal per 100g are estimates, so lean on them lightly. Weigh the first week's portions, then let condition guide you.

Chicken meat at 80% with chicken heart at 10%, and heart is muscle rather than organ, dense in the taurine that supports a heart muscle in turn. On a dry matter basis it reads the same as the beef: 50.9% protein, 29.1% fat, and an estimated 124 kcal per 100g. For a dog moving to fresh food for the first time, the most familiar meat is often the easiest place to start.

The chicken recipe is £9.20 a kilo, the pork £10.80, the beef £10.85 and the duck £11.50, each sold in 1kg and 600g packs.

Take around 840 kcal a day as the target for a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). A day then runs to about 611 grams on the duck, 634 on the pork and 677 on the beef or chicken. In money that comes to £6.23 a day on the chicken, £6.85 on the pork, £7.03 on the duck and £7.35 on the beef.