Rathlin Raw Complete: Beef with Vegetables and Berries review

The beef and chicken and the beef and green tripe settle in our Outstanding band, where the middle of the raw field sits too, which is the strongest company any format keeps on our scoring. The beef on its own follows a step behind in our Excellent band. Protein and processing reads Outstanding on all three, transparency Excellent. Nutritional balance is Outstanding on the two mixed minces and Good on the beef, and value Outstanding on the pair and Excellent on the beef. Choose on the animal and on how rich you want the mince to be rather than on the order they finish in.

Ingredients, as declared: 69% Irish Beef, 10% Chicken Bone, 10% Seasonal Vegetables and fruits (carrots, spinach, broccoli, blueberries and raspberries - the combinations vary in line with seasonal availability), 5% Ox Kidney, 5% Ox Liver, 0.5% Islander Rathlin Kelp and 0.5% Salmon Oil.

One blueprint, three ways of filling it. Beef leads, chicken bone comes in at 10% to supply the calcium, and kidney and liver take 5% each. Another 10% goes to seasonal vegetables and fruits, with kelp and salmon oil closing at 0.5% apiece. The plant share is itemised as carrots, spinach, broccoli, blueberries and raspberries, with the maker saying openly that the combination shifts with whatever is in season.

Chicken bone is the calcium source in all three, ground through the mince the way raw intends. It also means chicken is present in a range that reads as beef from the front of the pack, which is the sort of detail an owner steering round poultry needs to catch. No calcium declaration is printed, so the level rests on that 10% inclusion, with no figure you can check for yourself.

Kidney and liver at 5% each is a well judged organ share. Two of the three name both entries as ox, which is a proper description; the Beef and Green Tripe names its ox kidney but leaves the liver unattributed. Liver is where a raw recipe finds vitamin A and iron in quantity, along with the B vitamins. Kidney adds selenium and more of the B group. Between them they do the work a vitamin premix would otherwise be asked to do.

Green tripe carries one of the three at 34%, and that is the recipe to reach for with a dog who has gone quiet about dinner. Unwashed stomach lining is strong smelling and reliably tempting. Islander Rathlin Kelp at 0.5% supplies iodine and trace minerals. Salmon oil at 0.5% delivers the long chain omega 3 fats that older joints and coats draw on. That matters in a range listed for seniors. No additives panel is published, and the maker's position is that a food built from whole ingredients has no need for artificial vitamins.

The three analyses differ more than the ingredient lists let on. Protein converts to between 31.4% and 52.0% of dry matter and fat to between 32.0% and 43.3%, with moisture running from 65.0% to 75.0%. Carbohydrate never rises above 7.9%, and that figure is an estimate of the unmeasured remainder. No cereal or pulse is named on any of the three labels. The energy figures across the range are our own estimates, since no label declares one.

Irish beef at 69% with no second meat beyond the 10% chicken bone, which makes it the most single minded recipe of the three. It carries the highest fat at 42.9% of dry matter and much the highest crude ash at 21.4%, with carbohydrate estimating at zero.

The Beef and Green Tripe is £5.71 a kilo and the other two are £6.35. All three come as a 500g chub and a 1kg chub, with an 18kg single blend box of eighteen 1kg chubs also listed.

On the standard maintenance estimate (110 × bodyweight^0.75), a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition needs about 840 kcal a day. Against our estimated energy figures that is 506 grams a day on the Beef and 518 on the Beef and Chicken, with the Beef and Green Tripe needing 698. Those work out at £3.21, £3.29 and £3.98 a day respectively.