Wainwright's Mature Dry Food With Superfoods review

Our Good band holds this recipe, and the median adult dry food is in it too. Protein and processing reads Good behind it, with nutritional balance Average. The reasons are all on the front half of the ingredients list. Chicken at 45% is a large declared share for a mature food, and the split between fresh and meal is printed. Potato and sweet potato provide the starch, with no cereal in the recipe at all. The joint additions are given real percentages. What holds it back from a higher band is a carbohydrate load of 51.0% of dry matter and a second ingredient that arrives without a figure.

Ingredients, as declared: Chicken (45%) (*Freshly Prepared Free Run Chicken (26%), Chicken Meal (19%)) Potato Flake, Sweet Potato Pellets (14%), Sugar Beet Pellets (5%), Vegetable Digest, Poultry Oil, Dried Carrot, Alfalfa Pellets, Seaweed Meal (0.5%), Whole Linseed (0.2%), Chicory Root Extract (0.1%), Glucosamine (0.054%), Dried Blueberry (0.05%), Dried Fennel (0.05%), Dried Nettle, Dried Parsley (0.05%), Dried Rosemary (0.05%), Dried Spinach (0.05%), Chondroitin (0.039%), Methylsulfonylmethane (0.034%), Extract of Yucca Schidigera (0.02%), Dried Peppermint (0.005%), Turmeric (0.005%)

The headline is chicken at 45%, and it is properly broken down: 26% freshly prepared free run chicken and 19% chicken meal. Fresh chicken goes in carrying a lot of water, so the meal is what brings the protein through cooking. Having almost half the declared share in meal form is what makes the number believable. Protein reads 24.0%, which converts to 26.1% of dry matter on the 8% moisture a kibble usually holds, since this label does not declare it.

There is no grain anywhere. Potato flake is second on the list, sweet potato pellets are at 14% and sugar beet pellets at 5%. The beet is the fibre, not a sugar source, since the sugar is taken out before the pulp is used. Carbohydrate still works out at 51.0% of dry matter against 46.2% for the typical adult dry food. Even without cereal the plant side is doing plenty of the lifting.

Two entries do not name a species. Poultry oil is the fat, and poultry covers chicken as readily as turkey, duck or goose. Vegetable digest is a plant-based palatant sitting under the same sort of umbrella term. For a dog with no history neither one is a problem, and the vegetable digest brings no animal into the bowl at all. If you are trying to rule chicken in or out precisely, the oil does leave a small question open.

The joint additions are the most convincing part of the small print: glucosamine at 0.054%, chondroitin at 0.039% and MSM at 0.034%, each printed to three decimal places rather than waved at. For a food written for older dogs, that is exactly where you want the label to be specific.

The superfoods of the name are a tail of small inclusions: dried blueberry, fennel, parsley, rosemary and spinach at 0.05% each, dried nettle, alfalfa pellets and dried carrot, then peppermint and turmeric at 0.005%. Seasoning is what they are, and the recipe stands up without them. Rosemary does earn its keep twice over, as a natural antioxidant. Seaweed meal at 0.5% carries iodine. Whole linseed at 0.2% is the plant omega 3, and chicory root extract at 0.1% feeds the gut bacteria as a prebiotic.

The declaration prints vitamins A and D3, with vitamin E at 70 mg, then heads a trace elements line and stops. The technological additives are described as natural antioxidants. So the vitamins are readable and the minerals are not, which is the one soft spot on an otherwise forthcoming label.

£4.58 a kilo from the 12kg bag, or £6.50 a kilo if you start with the 2kg.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition would eat around 239 grams a day, assuming about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That comes to £1.09 a day. The label asks 175 to 300 grams for a dog between 12kg and 25kg, so the waistline is the better arbiter of the two.