Salters Energy review

In our scoring this comes out in the Good band, the same one that the middle of the adult dry market occupies. The lift comes from the front of the list. It is unusual for a kibble to start with two dried chicken entries ahead of any cereal. Dried meat carries no water with it, so where it sits on the list honestly reflects what reaches the bowl. The analysis agrees: protein converts to 31.5% of dry matter, fat to 21.7%, and estimated carbohydrate to 38.4% against the 46.2% typical for an adult dry food.

The company that chicken keeps is what stops it climbing further. Maize gluten meal and cellulose fibre are both working entries that a dog gets less from than the label figure implies. With no dosed additive panel published, there is nothing to read on the trace mineral side.

Ingredients, as declared: Chicken Meat Meal, Spray Dried Chicken Meal, Round Grain Rice, Ground Maize, Chicken Fat, Maize Gluten Meal, Dried Sugar Beet Pulp, Full Fat Linseed, Sunflower Meal, Dried Whole Egg, Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Yeast (Autolyzed), Cellulose Fibre, Natural Seaweed, Vitamins and Minerals.

Two dried chicken entries open the recipe, chicken meat meal followed by spray dried chicken meal, and that ordering is worth noticing. Meal goes into the mixer already dry. The top of the list therefore matches the finished kibble fairly closely, with none of the shrinkage a fresh meat headline hides. Protein finishes at 31.5% of dry matter and fat at 21.7%, so the energy in the name is genuine and not a marketing line.

Round grain rice and ground maize carry the starch, and estimated carbohydrate lands at 38.4% of dry matter against 46.2% typical for an adult dry food. This is openly a cereal recipe, and for most dogs cooked rice and maize are easy going. Dried sugar beet pulp behind them does the useful fibre work, with crude fibre at 2.4% of dry matter.

A careful reader will stop on maize gluten meal. It is what maize milling leaves behind, a by-product used to top up a protein figure. It certainly lifts the number, though dogs get less out of plant protein than they do out of meat. It sits below the chicken fat here, well short of the top, so it supports the chicken without standing in for it, and the analysis should be read with that in mind.

At the end of the label comes the pleasant surprise. Full fat linseed brings plant omega 3. Extra virgin olive oil is a rare sight in a kibble and a good source of vitamin E. Dried whole egg adds highly usable protein, and natural seaweed covers iodine and a spread of trace minerals. Autolysed yeast sits among them for palatability and gut support.

The least interesting thing on the list is cellulose fibre, a purified plant fibre that gives the kibble bulk and the dog nothing. Calcium works out at 0.98% of dry matter, a comfortable level for an adult, and ash at 6.0% of dry matter is modest, which points to a meal with more meat than bone in it.

There is no dosed additive panel for this range. What the maker does say is that no artificial colours, antioxidants or preservatives are used. The colour of the kibble is simply what cooking leaves behind, and a natural vitamin E extract handles preservation. That is a clear promise as far as it goes, though it does leave you without the zinc and copper figures a fully dosed label would hand you.

£5.97 a kilo, sold in 2kg and 15kg bags.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition would eat about 213 grams a day, assuming roughly 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That comes to £1.27 a day. The energy figure behind that is our estimate, not a declared number. A dog fed this recipe is likely to be working hard enough to need more, so treat it as a floor and let condition settle the rest.