Techni-Cal Pure Nature: Adult Grain Free review

Two of these four recipes reach our Excellent band, a step above the Good band where the typical adult dry food ends up. Adult Grain Free and Mini Adult Grain Free get there the same way: dehydrated poultry at the head of the list and no cereal anywhere. Carbohydrate sits at 40.1% and 37.4% of dry matter against the 46.2% typical for a dry food.

Adult with Lamb takes our Good band, held a little way back by maize, maize middlings and maize gluten between them doing a lot of the carrying, though its meat opening is genuinely strong. Salmon & Rice is the plainest of the four and lands in our Good band as well, with one meat entry at 27.5% and four cereal entries lined up behind it. All four are recognisably from the same maker, but the two grain free recipes are the ones that show what the line can do.

Ingredients, as declared: Dehydrated chicken, turkey and duck, peas, potato starch, beet pulp 9%, chicken fat 4%, pork fat, salmon oil (cold pressed) 1.5%, dried whole eggs, sodium chloride, crude lecithins, fructo-oligosaccharides 0.05%.

The two grain free recipes are built on the same idea and executed differently. One concentrated entry of dehydrated chicken, turkey and duck starts the Adult Grain Free list, and peas and potato starch do the binding. Behind them sit beet pulp at 9%, chicken fat at 4%, pork fat, salmon oil at 1.5% and dried whole eggs. Protein converts to 30.8% of dry matter and fat to 17.6%, which is a properly meat forward reading, and the carbohydrate at 40.1% is well under what a kibble usually runs.

Mini Adult Grain Free is the most interesting list in the range. Fresh chicken leads at 15%, with dehydrated chicken and dehydrated turkey immediately behind it and dehydrated duck a few places further down. The starch comes from horse beans, sweet potato, peas, potato starch and pea starch. Horse beans are broad beans and have nothing whatever to do with the animal, and they bring protein and fibre along with their starch. Then comes a real botanical tail: linseed at 3%, dried alfalfa at 0.5% and a herb blend at 0.25% of chicory, yarrow, purple coneflower, parsley, oregano, rosehip and milk thistle. Small amounts of carrot, spinach, tomato and cranberry close it. Most of that is seasoning, but the linseed and the 4% cold pressed salmon oil are doing genuine work. The declared 11.55 g of omega 3 is the highest figure in the range by a distance.

Adult with Lamb needs reading carefully. Dehydrated chicken at 14% comes first, turkey and duck join it, and the lamb the recipe is named for is declared at 4%, with fresh chicken at another 4% appearing later. That does not make it a bad recipe, and at 28.6% protein of dry matter it is a solid one. What you have, though, is a chicken recipe with lamb in it, and that is worth knowing if you came looking for a change of protein. The starch comes from maize, maize middlings and maize gluten. Maize gluten does something else as well: it lifts the protein reading without any meat behind it.

Salmon & Rice is the shortest list of the four and the most straightforward. Salmon meal at 27.5% is a concentrated marine protein, and barley, barley flour, rice and oats follow it. Animal fat is the one entry that will stop a careful reader. It names no species at all. A recipe that reads as a fish diet on the front cannot actually be relied on as one. For a dog that simply enjoys fish rather than one being kept strictly away from meat, that will not matter in the slightest.

Across all four, the vitamin panels are fully dosed and the fatty acids are printed, with the two grain free recipes carrying noticeably more vitamin A, vitamin D3 and vitamin E than the other pair. The trace element list is missing everywhere. None of the four publishes a zinc, copper, manganese or selenium figure, and that is the one thing keeping otherwise strong labels from reading as fully open.

The simplest grain free build in the range: dehydrated chicken, turkey and duck, then peas and potato starch, with beet pulp declared at 9%, chicken fat at 4% and salmon oil at 1.5%. Protein converts to 30.8% of dry matter and fat to 17.6%, energy comes in at 377 kcal per 100 grams, and its value reads Excellent.

All four recipes are £3.33 a kilo. Adult Grain Free, Salmon & Rice and Adult with Lamb come in 2.5 kg and 12 kg bags, and Mini Adult Grain Free in 2.5 kg and 5 kg.

Take a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition, needing around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). Depending on the recipe that is between 219 and 233 grams a day, at £0.73 to £0.77 a day. Each label prints its own table as well. Between the table and the dog's own shape, trust the shape.