Run Working Dog Cold Pressed: Beef review

The Turkey sits in our Excellent band, a step clear of the typical cold pressed food, while the Beef lands level with that typical in our Good band. Both bags share the same intent, and the labelling is what separates them. The Turkey reaches 41% named meat before a plant ingredient appears, and it breaks that figure into its parts. The Beef's beef protein meal stops at 25%, with barley and pea matching it at 25% each. Both print their joint doses and both carry the same vitamin and mineral panel, so the gap is about how much of the sack is animal.

Ingredients, as declared: Beef Protein Meal 25% Barley 25%, Pea 25%, Oats 12%, Sunflower Oil 7%, Beet Pulp, Yeasts and parts thereof (including Mannanoligosaccharides; Prebiotic MOS), Dried Carrot, Carnitine, Amino Acids (DL Methionine), Glucosamine (400 mg/kg), Chondroitin (300mg/kg), Yucca Shidigera, Chicory Root Extract (as a source of Prebiotic Fructo-oligosaccharides and Inulin), Natural Antioxidants (mix of Vitamin E and Rosemary Extracts).

Both recipes are pressed, and pressing compacts the ingredients at a low temperature. Nothing here is cooked hard and puffed the way extruded food is. The pellet that results holds together dry and falls apart wet, and it is fed like any other bagged food, which is a fair part of the appeal for anyone running several dogs.

The Beef is the plainer build of the two. Beef protein meal at 25% is a dried, concentrated meat and the only animal ingredient on the list, and it is followed by barley and pea at 25% each and oats at 12%. Barley and oats are both digestible once cooked and both bring useful fibre and micronutrients, though a quarter of the sack being pea is a large share for a legume. The fat comes from sunflower oil at 7%. As oils go it is one of the better ones, with little saturated fat and plenty of vitamin E.

The Turkey declares 41% turkey and then shows its working: dried ground turkey at 30%, turkey fat at 7% and hydrolysed turkey at 4%. Hydrolysing breaks protein into smaller fragments, and here it is doing a palatability job. Tapioca at 20%, sweet potato at 17% and pea starch flour at 15% carry the starch, and tapioca in particular is there for the pellet rather than for the dog. Dried kale and green lipped mussel powder finish the list, the mussel being where the fish allergen comes from.

The analyses land closer together than the ingredient lists suggest. On the Beef, protein converts to 26.7% of dry matter and fat to 12.2%. The Turkey reads 27.2% and 13.0%. Carbohydrate is the wider gap, at 43.9% against 47.9% of dry matter, with the category typical sitting at 43.2%. Energy comes out at 316 kcal per 100g on the Beef and 344 kcal on the Turkey.

On crude ash the two part company: the Beef reads 12.2% of dry matter and the Turkey 7.6%. That follows the beef protein meal, which concentrates minerals along with the protein when it is dried. Calcium converts to 1.67% and 1.63% of dry matter respectively, so both recipes land in much the same place on the mineral that matters most.

The supporting cast is shared. Glucosamine at 400 mg/kg and chondroitin at 300 mg/kg are printed with doses on both. Yeast derived mannan oligosaccharides and chicory root extract cover the prebiotic side, with yucca and carnitine behind them. Rosemary extract with vitamin E does the preserving naturally. Both mineral panels supply selenium as sodium selenite.

Beef protein meal at 25% is the only animal ingredient here, with barley and pea matching it at 25% each and oats at 12% behind them, then sunflower oil at 7% as the added fat. This is the half of the pair that carries grain, and the only meat named anywhere on it is beef. Energy comes out at 316 kcal per 100g and crude ash at 12.2% of dry matter, the higher of the two by a distance.

The Beef is £4.04 a kilo and the Turkey £4.96. Both come in 1.5kg bags and 12.5kg sacks.

Take a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition: about 840 kcal a day on the standard maintenance estimate (110 × bodyweight^0.75). That is roughly 266 grams of the Beef at £1.07 a day, or 245 grams of the Turkey at £1.21. On the Beef the printed table asks 231 grams for a 15kg dog, and the Turkey's asks 227. Treat these as a starting point, since a dog in real work eats more than a maintenance figure suggests.