Raw Pet Foods Complete: Beef & Tripe review

Every one of the seven minces reaches our Outstanding band, the Chicken & Tripe and the Turkey included. Our Outstanding band also holds the typical adult raw food. That is a measure of how high raw has pushed the bar, and no reflection on these labels. Protein and processing reads Outstanding on every recipe, with nutritional balance Outstanding wherever the label gives enough to judge it. Transparency is Outstanding on four of the seven, with the Beef at Excellent and the Duck and the Lamb & Tripe at Good. Value reads Outstanding right across the line, so the separation between them is fine-grained. Choose on the animal and the richness rather than on the order they finish in.

Ingredients, as declared: Beef 40%, Ox Tripe 30%, Ox Heart 12%, Ox Liver & Kidney 7%, Carrots 4%, Butternut 2%, Green Beans 2%, Broccoli 2%, Kelp & Flaxseed oil 1%

Only small things change from one mince to the next. A named meat takes the lead and ox heart and offal follow. Carrots at around 7 or 8%, with butternut and green leaf, make up the plant share. Kelp and flaxseed oil at 1% finish the job. That is the whole recipe in each case, which makes for a short read and an easy one to check against your own dog's list of no-go ingredients.

Bone is where a raw recipe normally finds its calcium, and only the Beef mince spells it out, at 10% of the label. The others rely on the bone that comes with a ground carcass without itemising it, and no calcium percentage is printed for any of them. For an adult dog in normal health that is ordinary raw practice, and a specific mineral question is one for the maker.

Organ meats do the micronutrient work in place of a premix. Depending on the recipe, liver runs from 2 to 6% with kidney behind it, and heart from 4 to 12%. Heart is not a true organ at all, only a working muscle, but a nutritious one. Liver in particular is why these labels can stand without a vitamin bag, since it carries copper, vitamin A and the B group in real quantity.

Tripe turns up in three of the recipes and deserves its billing. Unbleached and unwashed, it comes with the digestive enzymes and live bacteria of a working stomach, and dogs tend to find it irresistible even when their owners find it unappealing. In the Chicken & Tripe and the Beef & Tripe it takes a substantial share of the mince rather than a token pinch.

The analyses land where meat-led raw should: protein converting to between 37.3% and 45.8% of dry matter, fat between 39.8% and 45.8%, and carbohydrate at or near zero wherever it can be calculated. Fibre reads high on the two beef-led minces, at 13.1% and 12.0% of dry matter, which is more than carrots and greens would usually account for. Take it as printed, not as a target. The Chicken and the Duck declare no fibre at all, which is why their tables stay as fed.

Beef at 40% with ox tripe at 30%, ox heart at 12% and ox liver and kidney together at 7%. Nothing on this label leaves the one animal. For a dog on a strict single-protein trial, that makes it the obvious pick. Protein converts to 41.8% of dry matter and energy is estimated at 139 kcal per 100g.

Per kilo, the Beef & Tripe is £4.25, the Chicken £5.33, the Chicken & Tripe and the Turkey £5.56 each, the Duck £5.89, the Beef £6.44 and the Lamb & Tripe £7.78.

Assume a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition and about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That puts a day's feeding at £2.35 on the Chicken and £3.93 on the Beef. The spread follows energy density as much as the rate per kilo, because the lighter minces feed in larger portions.