Tuggs Cod Crew review

Cod Crew sits in our Outstanding band, level with the typical fresh food, which is about as strong a company as the fresh shelf keeps. Every pillar that carries a reading here comes back Outstanding.

Ingredients, as declared: Cod (40%), Fresh Insect (20%), Sweet Potato (10%), Carrot (7%), Broccoli (11%), Quinoa (4%), Sunflower Oil (5%), Minerals (1%), Brewer's Yeast (1%), Kelp Powder 0.5%, Chia Seeds 0.5%, Ingredient highlights Fresh Cod · Insects · Sweet Potato · Minerals · Carrots · Brewer's Yeast · Quinoa · Broccoli · Sunflower Oil · Chia Seeds · Kelp Powder

This is the lightest recipe Tuggs makes, at 120 kcal per 100g with 72.4% moisture declared, so bowls here are noticeably fuller than they would be on either of the meat pouches. Gentle cooking keeps the fish and vegetables looking like fish and vegetables, and the whole pouch goes into the fridge rather than a cupboard.

Cod at 40% is a lean white fish, and its leanness is the recipe's whole character. With the water gone, protein reads 40.9% of dry matter and fat only 16.3%. That is gentle by the standards of fresh food. There is no separate fish oil on the list, so the marine fats here come from the cod itself. That is honest, and it does mean the omega 3 content is modest next to an oily fish recipe.

The second protein is fresh insect at 20%, and cod alongside it is what makes this pouch worth a look when a dog has reacted to foods before. Neither cod nor insect is a meat most dogs have eaten much of, so between them they cover 60% of the recipe with proteins that are unfamiliar to almost every dog. The label stops short of naming the insect, which is the one entry it leaves open.

The vegetables carry more weight here than in the meat recipes. Broccoli sits at 11%, sweet potato at 10% and carrot at 7%, with quinoa at 4% behind them. Quinoa comes from a broad-leaved plant, not a grass, so a grain-free label can carry its seed. It also brings a fuller set of amino acids than most plant ingredients manage.

Sunflower oil at 5% is the most substantial single oil in any of the Tuggs recipes, and with no salmon oil on this label it is doing most of the fat work. The oil is a light one, with little saturated fat and a natural store of vitamin E. Chia seeds at 0.5% add the plant form of omega 3, kelp powder at 0.5% supplies iodine, and brewer's yeast at 1% brings the B vitamins.

The added panel is declared per kilogram, with vitamin A at 2500 IU, vitamin D3 at 250 IU and vitamin E at 20mg, followed by the trace elements down to selenium at 0.04mg. The label also gives a calcium to phosphorus ratio of 1.3:1, which is a useful thing to publish, although calcium itself is not stated as a percentage of the food.

There are three pouch sizes, 300g, 500g and 700g, and the boxes hold 5, 10 or 15. Subscription plans are sized to the dog, with no fixed box.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition eats around 700 grams a day, based on about 840 kcal a day from the standard maintenance estimate of 110 × bodyweight^0.75. Of the three Tuggs recipes this one asks for the most food each day, simply because it is the lightest. Puppies work differently, being fed to their own growth curve, so the amount rises and settles as the dog does.