Wainwright's Light Large Breed Adult Dry Food review

Our Good band holds this one, and the median adult dry food sits there too. The label is the more interesting read of the two. Its transparency reads Outstanding, and the joint entries are the one gap: glucosamine, MSM and chondroitin all appear with no percentage beside them, on a list that prints a figure for nearly everything else. Nutritional balance reads Average, as does protein and processing, mostly because a low fat recipe has to give the space to cereal. Against that sits a genuinely single-species meat panel, a full vitamin and mineral declaration and a fibre level that does the job the front of the bag promises. For a large dog on a reducing diet, that adds up to a sensible everyday food.

Ingredients, as declared: Turkey (33%) (Turkey Meal 26%, Freshly Prepared Turkey 5%, Turkey Digest 2%), Rice (26%), Whole Barley (19%), Beet Pulp (8.5%), Whole Oats (4%), Whole Peas (3% equivalent to 9.43% Peas), Whole Linseed (2%), Rapeseed Oil, Dried Carrots (1% equivalent to 8.13% Carrots), Seaweed Meal (0.2%), Chicory Root Extract, Glucosamine, MSM, Chondroitin, Yucca Extract (0.02%)

The 33% on the front is turkey in three forms: 26% turkey meal, 5% freshly prepared turkey and 2% turkey digest. The water is out of meal before it goes in, and leaning the share that way rather than towards the fresh portion is what keeps protein in the finished kibble. It reads 26.0%, converting to 28.3% of dry matter. Moisture is not declared on this label, so that conversion assumes the 8% a kibble normally holds.

Rice at 26% and whole barley at 19% do the carrying, with whole oats at 4% behind them and beet pulp at 8.5% supplying the bulk of the fibre. Crude fibre at 8.0% runs high for a dry food, and that is entirely the point. Fibre fills a dog up without bringing much energy along with it. Carbohydrate works out at 51.1% of dry matter against 46.2% for the typical adult dry food. Take the fat out and the balance shifts that way.

Fat at 4.0% is the lowest figure on the panel and the whole idea of the recipe. L-carnitine at 100 mg helps push fat towards being burned. Taurine at 500 mg is an amino acid, usually added because of the heart. On a big breed food that is a thoughtful touch.

Whole peas at 3% represent 9.43% fresh peas, while dried carrots at 1% represent 8.13% fresh. Declaring a dehydrated ingredient that way is the honest approach. Whole linseed at 2% brings omega 3 in its plant form. Chicory root extract is a prebiotic, feeding the population of helpful gut bacteria, and seaweed meal at 0.2% carries iodine.

All three of the joint entries are here: glucosamine, MSM and chondroitin, the set a large breed food ought to carry. They sit late in the list, after the seaweed, so the amounts are small by definition, but none of them is given a percentage. On a label this forthcoming everywhere else, that is the one place you have to take the maker at their word.

The declared panel is otherwise generous: zinc at 75 mg, iron at 40 mg, manganese at 30 mg, copper at 8 mg, iodine at 1.5 mg and selenium at 0.10 mg per kilo. Vitamins A and D3 are both declared, with vitamin E at 150 mg. The technological additives are listed simply as antioxidants, without naming which.

£3.27 a kilo, sold in a single 15kg bag.

For scale, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition would get through about 246 grams a day, assuming roughly 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That comes to £0.81 a day. Most dogs eating a large breed recipe will be a good deal heavier than that reference dog and will work through proportionally more. Treat the figure as a floor, not a forecast.