Run Premium Cold Pressed: Mixed Sea Fish review

Two of the three take our Excellent band, and the sea fish holds our Good band, where the typical cold pressed food sits too. So the range meets the category's usual standard and mostly clears it. The puppy recipe finishes highest of the three, the chicken a fraction behind it and the sea fish further back again. What earns those placings is the itemised meat share, the printed joint doses and a plant list of things you can picture. What keeps the range from climbing further is how much of each pellet those plant ingredients take up.

Ingredients, as declared: Fish Ingredients 30% (Dried Ground Sea Fish 25%, Salmon Protein Peptides 3%, Fish Oil 2%), Pea Starch Flour 20%, Sweet Potato, Yellow Pea, Tapioca, Sunflower Oil, Beet Pulp, Pea Fiber, Seaweed, Glucosamine (400 mg/kg), Chondroitin (300 mg/kg), Amino Acids (DL Methionine), Carnitine, Yeasts and parts thereof (including Mannan-oligosaccharides; Prebiotic MOS), Yucca Shidigera, Chicory Root Extract (as a source of Prebiotic Fructo-oligosaccharides and Inulin), Rosemary Extract, Natural Antioxidants (mix of Vitamin E and Rosemary Extracts)

The method comes first here, ahead of any single ingredient. Compaction happens at a low temperature, with none of the heat extrusion needs. The pellet crumbles in liquid and never expands. That is the appeal for anyone whose dog eats too quickly. Practically speaking it is fed exactly like a dry food, scooped from a bag with no freezer involved.

The meat declarations are unusually generous. Chicken is printed at 38% and split into dried ground chicken at 27%, chicken fat at 7%, chicken protein peptides at 3% and chicken liver at 1%. The fish recipe declares 30%, itemised as dried ground sea fish at 25%, salmon protein peptides at 3% and fish oil at 2%. Most labels give you one headline percentage and leave you guessing at the rest.

The plant side is where the bulk lives. Sweet potato leads it on two of the three at 25% and 17%, pea starch flour takes 20% on the fish recipe, and tapioca appears throughout. There is almost nothing in tapioca but starch. Its job in the pellet is to hold the shape, and it feeds the dog very little. Whole yellow pea and beet pulp bring fibre and a little more besides. Carbohydrate converts to between 42.4% and 44.7% of dry matter across the three, close to the 43.2% typical for the category.

All three labels print a dose for glucosamine at 400 mg/kg and chondroitin at 300 mg/kg. Not many labels do that. Both turn up in small amounts in any meat based food and are added deliberately here. Both are also made from animal sources as a rule, glucosamine most often from shellfish shells, which is the detail to register if shellfish is what you are keeping out of the bowl.

A prebiotic tail runs through the range: yeast derived mannan oligosaccharides, chicory root extract as a source of inulin, and yucca. Rosemary extract paired with vitamin E does the preserving, a natural system rather than a synthetic one, and DL methionine and carnitine top up the amino acid side.

Vitamins and minerals are printed line by line with doses, which is a real transparency win. Selenium is worth a second look. Sodium selenite is the source on the chicken and puppy recipes, and it is the commoner of the two forms pet food permits. On the sea fish recipe no selenium source is printed in the mineral list at all. That looks like a gap in the panel rather than a decision about the recipe.

Fish is declared at 30%, made up of dried ground sea fish at 25%, salmon protein peptides at 3% and fish oil at 2%. Pea starch flour at 20% sits behind it, and sunflower oil supplies extra fat. No other meat is named at any point. That makes it the obvious choice when land animals are off the menu. Crude ash reads 8.7% of dry matter, the highest of the three.

Per kilo, the Chicken & Sweet Potato is £5.20, the Mixed Sea Fish £5.52 and the Puppy Sea Fish & Chicken £5.63. All three come in 1.5kg, 7.5kg and 15kg bags.

On the standard maintenance estimate of 110 × bodyweight^0.75, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition needs around 840 kcal a day. Roughly 245 grams of the Chicken & Sweet Potato comes to £1.27, and 246 grams of the Mixed Sea Fish to £1.36. The labels' own tables ask 228 grams for a 15kg dog on the chicken recipe and 226 grams on the fish.