Poppy's Picnic Power Balls: Lamb Meatballs review

Every flavour here reaches our Outstanding band, and so does the typical raw food. All four sit just clear of the category middle. That is worth saying plainly. No field scores higher with us than raw, and keeping level with it takes a genuinely good label. The named meat share, the working organ set and the percentages printed against almost every entry are what do the earning. Differences between the four are small enough that the animal, not the ranking, should decide it.

Ingredients, as declared: 43% Grass Fed Lamb (Minced Lamb), 37% Grass Fed Beef (30% Beef Mince, 3% Heart, 2% Liver, 2% Kidney), Fresh Vegetables (4% Sweet Potato, 4% Green Cabbage, 4% Carrots, 4% Parsnip, Parsley), Organic Crude Wheatgerm (a natural source of Manganese), Natural Vitamin E from Sunflower Oil, Sustainably Sourced Wild Salmon Oil (a source of Vitamin D and healthy Omega 3 fats), Crushed Eggshell, 0.7`% Kelp Seaweed (a source of Iodine), 0.44% Spirulina, 0.34% Wheatgrass, 0.2% Turmeric

Rolling raw into a ball changes the handling, and the recipe stays put. The construction underneath is the same one Poppy's uses across its raw shelf: named muscle meat first, organ meats behind it, a fixed vegetable share, then oils and sea plants to finish. What the format adds is the ability to take dinner out of the pack in pieces, which is a small thing until you have tried to serve a half-thawed block of mince.

Organ meats are doing real work on these labels. Beef heart runs from 3% to 22% depending on the flavour, with beef liver printed between 2% and 4.9% and kidney behind it where the recipe carries one. Liver is exceptionally dense in vitamin A, B12, copper and selenium, and it is the reason a raw recipe can go without a vitamin panel and still stand up.

Four vegetables at 4% each, sweet potato, green cabbage, carrots and parsnip, with parsley after them. That is a leaner produce list than Poppy's uses elsewhere, and it is all the better for being itemised. You can see exactly what the plant fraction is, with no fresh vegetables entry to take on trust. Carrots contribute beta carotene, soluble fibre and antioxidants, and the brassicas add bulk without adding starch.

Nothing here is supplemented from a powder. Crushed eggshells carry the calcium. Vitamin D and omega 3 fats come out of wild salmon oil, natural vitamin E out of sunflower oil, iodine out of kelp seaweed at 0.7%, and manganese out of organic crude wheatgerm. Spirulina at 0.44%, wheatgrass at 0.34% and turmeric at 0.2% close the list, small enough to read as character, and the printed figures are candid about that.

The analyses come out where meat and organ recipes should. Protein converts to between 36.2% and 64.6% of dry matter, fat to between 19.2% and 38.2%, and carbohydrate stays low on three of the four. The Lamb Meatballs estimate at 19.3% of dry matter, a quirk of calculating carbohydrate by difference. There is no cereal or pulse on the label to account for it.

Minced grass fed lamb at 43% with grass fed beef at 37% behind it, split as 30% mince, 3% heart, 2% liver and 2% kidney. The most concentrated flavour of the four is this one, at 222 kcal per 100g with fat converting to 37.0% of dry matter. Portions stay small, and the dog it suits is one that burns plenty of energy in a day.

Every flavour is £10.56 a kilo. Packs hold 360g, and the boxes run 8, 16, 24, 36 and 44.

Take a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition, needing around 840 kcal a day on the standard maintenance estimate (110 × bodyweight^0.75). Portions run from 378g to 706g and a day's feeding from £4.00 to £7.45. The difference is richness: the Lamb Meatballs put the most energy into a gram, the Chicken Meatballs the least.