Royal Canin Giant Starter review

Our scoring stops this one a step short of the Good band that the middle of the adult dry shelf reaches, leaving it in our Average band. That reads oddly against the numbers, which are the best thing here: protein converts to 33.0% of dry matter and estimated carbohydrate to 31.7%, far below the 46.2% typical of adult dry food. Nutritional balance comes back Good with transparency Average, leaving protein and processing as the one reading that sits lower.

What holds it back is a label that never names a species and leans on wheat gluten for part of its protein, together with the missing calcium declaration on a food meant for growth. For a giant breed puppy already thriving on it, that is a paperwork gap rather than a problem in the bowl, and it is worth closing with a question to the maker.

Ingredients, as declared: Rice, dehydrated poultry protein, animal fats, wheat gluten*, hydrolysed animal proteins, maize, beet pulp, minerals, soya oil, vegetable fibres, fish oil, psyllium husks and seeds, fructo-oligo-saccharides, hydrolysed yeast (source of manno-oligo-saccharides and betaglucans) (0.30%), algal oil Schizochytrium sp. (source of DHA), butyric acid salt, marigold meal.

The analysis sits at the concentrated end of dry food. Protein is declared at 30.0% and converts to 33.0% of dry matter, with fat at 22.0% converting to 24.2%. Estimated carbohydrate works out at 31.7% of dry matter against the 46.2% typical of adult dry food. Energy lands at 417 kcal per 100g, which is what a fast-growing giant breed needs from a stomach that cannot yet hold much.

Rice leads and dehydrated poultry protein follows, with wheat gluten fourth, carrying the label's note about a protein chosen for how well it is digested. Maize sits further down. Some of the declared protein is therefore cereal, and the bird itself is never named.

Nothing else on this label has been thought through like the digestive kit. Psyllium husks and seeds are the soluble fibre, and fructo-oligo-saccharides feed the gut's own bacteria. Hydrolysed yeast is declared at 0.30% as a source of manno-oligo-saccharides and betaglucans, with a butyric acid salt there for the gut lining. Beet pulp adds the more familiar sort of fibre, though crude fibre stays low overall at 1.9%.

DHA comes from an algal oil, Schizochytrium, and DHA is the long-chain omega 3 a developing brain and eye draw on, with fish oil alongside it. Ash is high at 8.2%. The mineral load is bigger than an ordinary adult kibble carries, and vitamin D3 is dosed at 1200 IU with zinc at 135 mg per kilo.

Calcium is the figure this label does not give, and on a food for a giant breed at the very start of life it is the one an owner most needs. In the giant breeds, getting calcium right matters more than anywhere else. If this is to be the everyday bag for a young dog, ask the maker for the declared level, then feed to the guide and not by eye.

£5.16 a kilo, sold in a 15kg sack.

So this can be lined up against the rest of the shelf, take a 15kg adult in moderate condition needing about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That comes to roughly 201 grams and £1.04 a day. A growing giant breed will eat well beyond that, and the feeding guidance is set out in 0 to 4 months and 4 to 12 months brackets rather than by adult weight.