Purizon Single Meat Adult: Lamb with Hop Blossoms review

Three of these land in our Good band, level with the typical adult dry food, and the chicken edges into Excellent. The gaps between them are small, so let your dog's protein preference decide it and ignore the ranking. Carbohydrate is the common thread. It converts to between 32.0% and 34.8% of dry matter across the four, comfortably under the 46.2% a typical bag carries, and protein lands between 33.7% and 37.0% of dry matter.

Ingredients, as declared: Fresh lamb meat (30%), lamb protein (18.5%), dried peas (10%), potato flakes (7%), pea protein, lamb fat (5%), potato starch, linseed, dried beet pulp, liver hydrolysate (3%), dried brewers' yeast, potato protein, sunflower oil, salmon oil (0.7%), apple pomace (0.2%), carrot pomace (0.2%), yeast cell walls (0.2%, rich in mannan-oligosaccharides and beta-glucans), lignocellulose, seaweed flour, dried cranberries (0.1%), hop flowers (0.05%), rosemary, dandelion leaves, parsley, chamomile, nettle, ribwort plantain.

Every label opens with a protein concentrate from the named animal, partly dried and partly hydrolysed, then puts fresh meat of the same species behind it. That order is doing real work. Most of what fresh meat brings to the mixer is water, and the oven takes care of that. The concentrate is what carries protein through to the finished kibble, and the panel bears that out.

Potato flakes and potato starch handle most of the binding, with dried peas taking over some of it in the lamb. Cereal appears nowhere across the four, and the starch load stays moderate for a dry food.

The supporting entries are chosen rather than scattered. Dried beet pulp brings gentle fibre, and yeast cell walls at 0.2% carry the mannan-oligosaccharides and beta-glucans that feed gut bacteria. Sunflower oil and salmon oil supply the fats, with linseed adding plant omega 3 in three of the four recipes.

The blossoms are the range's flourish. Camomile, lavender, hop and cornflower each go in at 0.05%, which is a pinch, and the herb tail behind them, from rosemary through nettle and ribwort, sits at trace level too. None of it makes the food; the meat concentrate does that.

The mineral panel is printed with amounts, and zinc gets particular attention at 100 mg as zinc sulphate plus 60 mg as a glycine chelate per kilo. The chelated form is generally taken up more readily. Iron at 250 mg, manganese at 30 mg, copper at 12.5 mg and iodine at 2.2 mg fill out the rest, alongside vitamin E at 200 IU and vitamin C at 100 mg.

The range name promises a single meat and on the protein side it delivers, with no second species in any of the meat entries. Salmon oil is the standing exception in every bag, and the two poultry recipes take their fat from an unnamed bird. On a strict elimination diet, the lamb and the salmon are the tidier reads.

The one red meat option and the tidiest label of the four for an elimination plan. Fresh lamb leads at 30%, lamb protein follows at 18.5%, and the fat is lamb fat at 5%, so nothing unnamed carries it. Dried peas at 10% take over some of the starch work from potato, liver hydrolysate at 3% goes in as a palatant without naming its animal, and hop flowers at 0.05% finish it off.

£4.46 a kilo across all four flavours. Bags come in 1kg and 12kg, with a multipack of four 1kg bags on the chicken, a multipack of two 12kg bags on every flavour, and a 100g bag on the salmon.

As a guide, feeding a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition takes about 225 to 230 grams a day, assuming around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). The daily figure lands between £1.00 and £1.03. The duck, lamb and salmon labels ask 185 to 190 grams for the same dog. Your dog's waistline can decide between the two.