Wainwright's Plant Powered with Insect & Superfoods Dry review

This one takes our Average band. The median adult dry food is a step higher, in Good. The reason is plain in the first few ingredients. Rice, potato protein and maize gluten meal all come before the insect meal, so most of the protein here is plant protein. A dog digests that less completely than animal protein, and its amino acid spread is less useful. Protein and processing and nutritional balance read Poor as a result, while transparency reads Excellent. The recipe deserves credit for answering its own problem in the open: taurine at 500 mg and methionine at 1000 mg are added back. The mineral panel is dosed generously and calcium works out at 1.01% of dry matter. Taken as a novel protein option, it works.

Ingredients, as declared: Rice, Potato Protein, Maize Gluten Meal, Beet Pulp (5%), Dried Peas (5%), Rapeseed Oil, Insect Meal (4%), Vegetable Stock, Minerals, Whole Linseed (0.5%), Seaweed Meal (0.5%), Chicory Root Extract (as a source of prebiotic FOS) (0.1%), Dried Spinach (0.05%, equivalent to 0.45% Spinach), Dried Blueberry (0.05%, equivalent to 0.3% Blueberries), Dried Nettle (0.05%), Dried Parsley, Dried Rosemary, Yucca Extract (0.04%), Glucosamine (0.02%), Chondroitin (0.015%), Turmeric, Dried Spearmint.

The protein comes from four places and only one of them is an animal. Potato protein and maize gluten meal are both concentrated plant proteins used to lift the protein line, dried peas at 5% add a little more, and insect meal at 4% is the animal contribution. Protein reads 24.0% on the panel, a respectable figure for a kibble. The source mix is the part to understand. Plant proteins are less digestible for a dog than meat, and they are usually short of one or two amino acids that meat supplies easily.

Insect protein itself is the interesting part, and it is well regarded. It is genuinely novel to almost every dog, and that is exactly the point when the shortlist of untried meats has run out. It is also produced with a fraction of the land and feed that livestock needs. At 4% it is a small share of this recipe rather than its engine, so read the food as a plant recipe with an insect element instead of an insect food.

Rice leads the list and beet pulp at 5% supplies fibre. The prebiotic is chicory root extract at 0.1%, feeding the bacteria further along the gut. Carbohydrate lands at 55.5%, or 56.1% of dry matter, where 46.2% is typical for adult dry food. That is what happens when cereal and plant proteins carry a recipe between them.

Taurine at 500 mg and methionine at 1000 mg are the two additions that show the formulator understood the brief. Methionine is one of the amino acids plant proteins tend to run short on, and taurine is the one most often watched in diets built on something other than meat. Seeing both dosed in print is reassuring on a recipe of this kind.

The mineral panel is generous and printed in full. Zinc comes at 100 mg, iron at 75 mg, manganese at 50 mg, copper at 7.5 mg, iodine at 1.5 mg and selenium at 0.15 mg per kilo. Vitamins A and D3 are declared, with vitamin E at 125 mg. Calcium converts to 1.01% of dry matter, a comfortable adult level.

The superfoods are a short tail: dried spinach at 0.05%, shown as the equivalent of 0.45% of fresh spinach, dried blueberry at 0.05% standing for 0.3% of fresh, then nettle, parsley, rosemary, turmeric and spearmint. Yucca extract at 0.04% is there for household reasons. The plant omega 3 comes from whole linseed at 0.5%, and seaweed meal at 0.5% carries iodine. Two entries stay vague, a vegetable stock and a line that simply reads minerals, which is the small print you would want opened up.

One oddity on the panel is worth flagging: moisture is declared at 1.0%, far drier than a finished kibble normally is. Take it at face value and the as fed and dry matter columns barely move apart, which is why the two sets of figures on this page look so close to each other.

£6.50 a kilo in the 2kg bag and £4.58 a kilo in the 12kg.

Feeding a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition works out at roughly 249 grams a day, assuming around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate), or £1.14 a day. For a dog of 12kg to 25kg the bag's own table asks 180 to 315 grams. Start there and let the waistline guide the rest.