Run Premium Cold Pressed: Puppy - Sea Fish & Chicken 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 24% (Dried Ground Sea Fish 18%, Salmon Protein Peptides 3%, Fish oil 3%), Chicken Ingredients 21% (Dried Ground Chicken 15%, Chicken Fat 6%), Sweet Potato 17%, Tapioca, Yellow Pea Meal, Beet Pulp Fibre, Pea Fibre, 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.

Two animals share the work here, fish at 24% and chicken at 21%, which between them put more named meat in the pellet than either adult recipe manages. Fat runs higher for growth at 15.2% of dry matter and energy reaches 357 kcal per 100g, with protein at 31.5% of dry matter, a shade above its two stablemates.

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.