Wainwright's Kibble + Freeze Dried Raw: Grass Fed Beef with Superfoods review

Both recipes reach our Excellent band, and the beef finishes a shade behind the chicken. Both labels break their meat into named parts and show the freeze dried share separately, which is where much of the credit comes from. The two read alike pillar by pillar: protein and processing and transparency both Outstanding, nutritional balance Average, and value Excellent to match the overall. The chicken's small lead comes from the detail, not from any single pillar. Measured against a typical freeze dried food, which is an Outstanding one, these two are playing a different game anyway. Most of each bag is kibble, so the analysis behaves like a kibble even though the raw pieces are real.

Ingredients, as declared: Beef (45.5%) (Freshly Prepared Grass Fed Beef 24%*, Beef Meal 13.5%*, Freeze Dried Beef Pieces 8%*), Sweet Potato* (37%), Beet Pulp* (7.5%), Rapeseed Oil*, Vegetable Stock, Minerals, Linseed* (0.5%), Dried Carrot* (0.5% equivalent to 4% Carrot), Seaweed Meal* (0.5%), Chicory Root Extract* (as a source of prebiotic FOS) (0.1%), Dried Spinach* (0.05% equivalent to 0.46% Spinach), Dried Blueberry (0.05% equivalent to 0.33% Blueberries), Dried Nettle*, Dried Parsley*, Dried Rosemary*, Yucca Extract (0.02%), Glucosamine (0.02%), Chondroitin (0.015%), Turmeric* (0.005%), Dried Spearmint*.

The format is the interesting part. Freeze dried raw pieces at 8% are blended through a finished kibble, so every scoop carries some meat that has never been cooked at extrusion heat alongside the baked part of the recipe. It is a halfway house by design, and it means no defrosting, no separate storage and no change to how you feed.

The chicken recipe itemises its 55.5% properly. Freshly prepared British chicken at 24% is fresh meat with its water still in it. Chicken meal at 19% is the dried concentrate that carries far more protein per gram. The freeze dried pieces stand at 8%, and chicken fat at 4.5% is a named animal fat, not an anonymous one. Reading those four figures together tells you more than any single meat percentage would.

The beef recipe reaches 45.5% by the same method, splitting into freshly prepared grass fed beef at 24%, beef meal at 13.5% and freeze dried beef pieces at 8%. Sweet potato at 37% is its base in place of the chicken recipe's potato. Rapeseed oil supplies the added fat, not an animal one, and beet pulp at 7.5% brings the fermentable fibre that helps firm a stool.

The tail of both lists is long and honestly measured. Seaweed reaches 0.45% in the chicken, 0.5% in the beef. The prebiotic FOS here is chicory root extract at 0.1%. Dried spinach and dried blueberry each come in at 0.05%, and the label helpfully translates those back into the fresh equivalents of 0.45% spinach and 0.3% blueberries. Yucca extract at 0.02% follows, with nettle, parsley, rosemary, turmeric and spearmint behind it. None of that is doing heavy nutritional lifting, but a maker that prints figures this small is generally straight about the big ones too.

The analysis reflects a kibble far more than a raw food. Both recipes declare 25% protein. That converts to 27.5% of dry matter on the chicken, 26.3% on the beef, with fat at 14.3% and 14.7% respectively and carbohydrate estimated at 46.7% and 47.4%. Energy runs to 336 kcal per 100g on the chicken, 369 on the beef, the latter working from an assumed moisture of 5% since the beef label leaves moisture undeclared.

The added panel is generous and fully dosed. Vitamin A, D3 and E appear on both, with zinc as oxide at 92mg per kilo on the chicken and a small chelated top-up at 0.96mg. Iron, manganese and copper are each printed, and selenium is supplied in both the sodium selenite and the selenised yeast form. Antioxidants are the only technological additive declared.

Grass Fed Beef puts 45.5% beef against a big sweet potato base at 37%, and takes its added fat from rapeseed oil, not from the animal. Beet pulp at 7.5% is a larger fibre entry than the chicken carries. On energy the beef is the richer half at 369 kcal per 100g, with fat converting to 14.7% of dry matter. Where poultry does not agree with a dog, this is the obvious half of the pair.

Both recipes are £8.00 a kilo, sold in a 2kg bag.

Roughly 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate) puts a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition on about 250 grams of the chicken. The beef comes to about 228 grams. That comes to around £2.00 a day on the chicken and £1.82 a day on the beef.