Trophy Pet Foods Trophy Super Premium Small Bite review

Our scoring puts this one in the Good band, and the middle of the adult dry market comes out there as well. Chicken meal at a minimum of 26% is a genuine anchor, the calorie figure is declared rather than estimated, and the trace minerals are printed in full, all of which count in its favour. The balance of the bowl is what keeps it level. Protein converts to 23.9% of dry matter and carbohydrate to 54.8%, so a good deal of the carrying falls to rice and maize. For a small dog on a steady routine that is a perfectly reasonable way to build a kibble.

Ingredients, as declared: Rice (min. 34%), Chicken Meal (min. 26%), Maize, Chicken Fat, Unmolassed Beet Pulp (min. 3.5% vegetables), Seaweed, Minerals, Salmon Oil, Mannan Oligosaccharides, Glucosamine, Green-Lipped Mussel, Yucca Schidigera, Rosemary, Blackcurrant, Pomegranate

Rice leads at a minimum of 34%, a sensible choice for the job. It cooks down gently, most dogs digest it without fuss, and it gives a small kibble something to hold its shape with. Maize sits third doing similar structural work, and while it has picked up a poor reputation over the years it is perfectly digestible once cooked.

The only meat in the recipe is chicken meal at a minimum of 26%. Meal is the concentrated form, so that figure means what it says, with no shrinking in the oven. A single meat source is useful when you already know chicken suits your dog. It is also the whole meat story here, so it needs to hold up on its own.

Chicken fat and salmon oil supply the fats, the salmon oil bringing the marine omega 3s that linseed can only approximate. Seaweed adds iodine and a spread of minerals, unmolassed beet pulp does the fibre, and mannan oligosaccharides sit in as a prebiotic to keep the friendly gut bacteria fed.

Glucosamine and green-lipped mussel appear as a pair near the foot of the list, without a printed dose, a welcome extra and not a measured programme. Rosemary, blackcurrant, pomegranate and yucca close the list as antioxidants and a natural preservative, in the small quantities that placement implies.

The trace elements are declared properly, with zinc at 172mg per kilo and a further 13mg as a glycine chelate, copper at 10.5mg and iodine at 1.9mg. A dog's gut takes up chelated minerals more readily than the plain forms. A label that prints every dose is easier to trust than one that lists the ingredient and stops there.

In 3kg and 14kg bags, at £4.59 a kilo.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition would get through about 241 grams a day, assuming around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That works out at £1.10 a day. Most dogs eating a small bite kibble are a good deal lighter than that, so scale the figure down to your own dog.