Pro Plan All Size Adult Light / Sterilised OptiWeight review

Our scoring puts this a band under the middle of the adult dry shelf, reading Average where the typical adult dry food reads Good, and the reasons are all about construction. Named chicken is declared at 15%, and that is fresh weight, most of which leaves during cooking. A good deal of the finished protein arrives instead from dried poultry protein, soya meal and corn protein meal. Carbohydrate converts to 48.9% of dry matter against the 46.2% typical for adult dry food.

None of that makes it a risky bowl. This is a complete food with every vitamin and mineral dosed in print, and it is built for one specific job. On a dog carrying a bit of extra weight, it does that job with less energy per gram than most of the shelf offers.

Ingredients, as declared: High quality chicken (including back and chest) (15%), Wheat, Dried poultry protein, Corn, Rice (9%), Dried beet pulp, Soya meal, Digest, Corn protein meal, Corn grits, Wheat gluten, Minerals, Fish oil, Animal fats

The headline is high quality chicken at 15%, and the label is unusually candid about which parts, naming back and chest. That is frame meat, not fillet, and being fresh it comes in carrying water that the oven takes back out. What remains still counts, but the protein in the finished kibble leans on the dried entries that follow it.

Wheat, corn, rice at 9% and corn grits carry the starch, with wheat gluten and corn protein meal lifting the protein figure without bringing any meat with them. Protein converts to 29.3% of dry matter and carbohydrate to 48.9%. The plant side is doing much of the work. Wheat divides opinion because a minority of dogs react to it, while most eat it happily for years.

Fat at 9.0% is the number the name is built on, and it is genuinely restrained for a dry food, which is how energy lands at 330 kcal per 100g. Dried beet pulp supplies the fibre at 3.5%, the ingredient that lets a reduced portion still feel like dinner rather than a snack. The omega source is fish oil, right near the end of the list.

Digest, in the middle of the list, is the palatant sprayed onto kibble to make it taste like something a dog wants to cross the room for. It does that job well, and it names no species, which is the recurring theme of this label: the poultry protein, the animal fats and the digest all leave the animal unsaid.

The added vitamins and minerals get a dose each, and not many labels go that far. Zinc arrives at 130 mg, iron at 140 mg and manganese at 52 mg per kilo, with vitamin E at 550 IU and vitamin C at 120 mg. The minerals come as sulphates, the everyday form, and not as chelates. Selenium comes as sodium selenite. Pet food permits two forms and this is the everyday one, absorbed less readily than the other. Tocopherol extracts keep the fats fresh in place of a chemical preservative.

Sold in 3kg and 14kg bags.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition would work through about 254 grams a day, assuming around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). The label's own table asks 185 grams for a 10kg dog and 345 grams for a 25kg dog. On a food built for weight control, the waistline settles any disagreement between the two.