Solimo Adult Medium & Large Breed: Rich In Chicken With Peas review

Two of the three flavours read Poor on our scoring and the lamb and rice lifts into Average, while the typical adult dry food lands in our Good band. The gap is about openness, and there is nothing alarming here. When a label names its contents by category we cannot give credit for what might be in the bag, and cereal leads the analysis. None of that stops a dog doing perfectly well on it. It simply means the label keeps more to itself than the stronger performers do.

Ingredients, as declared: Cereals, Meat and Animal Derivatives 25% (14% Chicken), Oils and Fats, Vegetables (4% Dried Peas), Minerals, Derivatives of Vegetable Origin (0.01% Yucca Schidigera), Seeds, Algae, Fruits, Yeasts (0.06% Yeast Cell Walls (source of Mannan-oligosaccharides and β-glucans)).

The list is written in categories. Cereals opens it without naming a grain, and Meat and Animal Derivatives carries the animal content with only the headline species pinned down, at 14% in each flavour. Category labelling is legal and common, and it exists to give the maker freedom to vary its sources from batch to batch. The trade sits with you: a consistent bag on the shelf, less certainty about exactly what fills it each time.

The animal fraction runs at 25% to 28% depending on flavour. Derivatives deserve a fairer hearing than the name suggests. The heading covers the parts of the animal people do not buy at the counter, organ meat included, and much of an animal's nutrition lives there. What the label cannot tell you is which parts, or from which animals, beyond that named 14%.

The analysis tells the rest of the story. Carbohydrate converts to between 52.8% and 53.9% of dry matter across the range, above the 46.2% typical for adult dry food, while protein comes out at 23.9% of dry matter in every flavour. This is a cereal-led kibble with a moderate meat contribution, which is exactly what the list order says it is.

The small print holds two quietly sensible entries. Yeast cell walls at 0.06% bring mannan-oligosaccharides and beta-glucans, a modest gut-support inclusion, and yucca schidigera at 0.01% is the ingredient makers reach for with stool odour in mind. At these doses both are gestures, not programmes, but they are the right gestures.

The added vitamin and mineral panel is long and printed with every dose, from vitamin A at 13000 IU down to selenium. On a meat-rich label that panel would matter less. A cereal-led recipe leans on its additions to hit its nutritional targets, and this one shows its workings. The minerals come in ordinary forms such as zinc oxide and iron sulphate, with no chelates, the conventional choice for a recipe kept deliberately simple.

Chicken at 14% inside a 25% animal fraction, the smallest of the three, again with dried peas at 4%. The declared analysis matches the beef line for line, so this one is a straight swap for dogs that simply prefer poultry.

The chicken is £1.50 a kilo, the beef and the lamb £1.74 a kilo, in 5kg and 20kg bags across the range.

Assuming about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate), a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition costs about £0.37 a day on the chicken. The lamb comes to £0.36 and the beef to £0.43. The label's own guide for a dog between 10kg and 15kg is 200 to 270 grams a day.