Step Up Dry Food Adult Grain Free: Beef With Sweet Potato review

Both recipes come out in our Good band. The middle of the adult dry category settles there too, which puts this range level with the norm. You can read the reasons straight from the label. The meat all arrives as meal, which concentrates protein efficiently and tells you less about what went in, and the beef recipe declares an 18% meat and bone portion without naming an animal. Carbohydrate converts to 50.8% of dry matter for the beef and 50.9% for the chicken, against 46.2% for the typical adult dry food. Pulling the other way, the percentages are printed generously and every added mineral carries a dose, so both recipes read Outstanding for transparency. Protein and processing is Average on each, and nutritional balance is Average on the chicken against Poor on the beef.

Ingredients, as declared: Beef & Meat Meal (27% incl. Meat & Bone 18%, Beef Greaves 9%), Dried Sweet Potato (25%), Dried Potato, Dried Peas (9%), Poultry Fat (5.5%), Poultry Gravy, Beet Pulp, Dried Apple (1% equivalent to 6.5% Apple), Salmon Oil (0.5%), Dried Chicory

The beef recipe leads with beef and meat meal at 27%, made up of meat and bone at 18% and beef greaves at 9%. Meal is meat that has had its water driven off, so it concentrates protein neatly. The meat and bone share names no species, and greaves are the pressed residue left once fat has been rendered out. It is a workmanlike meat entry rather than a showpiece, and the ash figure of 9.5% is the tell that a fair amount of bone came along with it.

The chicken recipe is tidier on the meat front. Chicken is pinned at 21% inside the 26% poultry meal, so most of that animal content has a name. The remainder stays as poultry, a family term that can cover chicken, turkey, duck or goose. Its ash sits at 7.5%, noticeably below the beef, and its protein converts to 25.1% of dry matter against 23.0% in the beef.

In both, the biggest plant entry is dried sweet potato at 25%. Dried potato and dried peas at 9% sit behind it. No wheat, maize or rice appears on either list, so the grain free claim holds up when you read it through rather than take it from the front of the bag. Sweet potato brings more fibre and a good deal more vitamin A than ordinary potato. Dried apple is declared at 1% and equivalent to 6.5% fresh apple. That is a label being scrupulous about a small ingredient.

Poultry fat does the fat work in both, at 5.5% in the beef and at 6% in the chicken. That is worth pausing on if you picked the beef specifically to keep birds out of the bowl. Salmon oil at 0.5% in each supplies the marine omega 3s. No other form reaches a dog's skin and coat as directly. It also means neither recipe is free of fish.

Beet pulp and dried chicory sit at the back doing the gut work. Chicory is a natural source of inulin, a soluble fibre the helpful bacteria lower down the gut live on. Every added mineral carries a dose: zinc 50 mg, iron 40 mg, manganese 30 mg, copper 8 mg, iodine 1.5 mg and selenium 0.15 mg per kilo. The forms are sulphates and oxides, the plainer of the two options. A dog absorbs them perfectly well, even if a chelate is generally the easier form to take up.

Beef and meat meal at 27% leads this one, split into meat and bone at 18% and beef greaves at 9%. Protein is declared at 21.0% and ash at 9.5%, the heavier mineral load of the two, with calcium working out at 2.3% of dry matter and energy at 363 kcal per 100g. A dog that eats better on red meat than on birds will want this one, bearing in mind the poultry fat further down the list.

£3.40 a kilo in the beef and the same in the chicken, sold in 2kg bags.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition eats about 231 grams a day of the beef. The chicken figure is 227 grams. Both assume around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That works out at £0.79 and £0.77 a day. The label's own table asks 200 to 340 grams for a dog between 12kg and 25kg. Your dog's waistline settles it if the two disagree.