Wainwright's Puppy Dry Food With Superfoods review

Our Good band is where this kibble settles, and it happens to be where the midpoint of the puppy dry food field lies too, so the interesting question is which way it leans from there. It leans upward, finishing above that middle mark. Good is the reading on protein and processing, and nutritional balance and value match it. Transparency reads Outstanding, and the ingredient list is specific in places where own-label growth foods often stay vague.

What holds it back is the declared analysis, not the recipe. The panel stops short of calcium. On a bag sold for pups of every size, that is the omission with the most riding on it.

Ingredients, as declared: Chicken (50%) (Freshly Prepared Free Run Chicken 26%, Chicken Meal 15.5%, Chicken Fat 8.5%), Potato, Potato Starch, Potato Protein, Sweet Potato (4%) Vegetable Stock, Minerals, Dried Carrot, Alfalfa, Beet Pulp (0.5%), 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, Dried Parsley, Dried Rosemary, Yucca Extract (0.02%), Glucosamine (0.02%), Chondroitin (0.015%) Turmeric, Dried Spearmint

The 50% chicken headline is split three ways on the label: freshly prepared free run chicken at 26%, chicken meal at 15.5% and chicken fat at 8.5%. Fresh chicken brings a good deal of water, and the oven sees it off. The meal goes in dry, and for all its smaller share it supplies more of the kibble's protein. Declared protein comes out at 28.0%, or 30.8% of dry matter.

Anyone watching what goes in will find no animal here but chicken. Meat and fat both come from the bird, so the whole recipe stays on one species. That makes it a realistic bag for a pup kept to one protein.

Binding falls to potato, potato starch and sweet potato at 4%. No cereal appears anywhere on the list. Our carbohydrate estimate is 34.5% as fed, or 37.9% of dry matter, a shade under the 39.0% typical of a puppy kibble. Nothing starchy is hiding behind the meat headline. Potato protein appears further down, and being a plant protein it contributes less to a growing pup than the chicken above it.

Beet pulp and linseed at 0.5% apiece bring gentle fibre and plant omega 3, seaweed meal adds a natural source of minerals and iodine, and chicory root extract at 0.1% is named as the prebiotic. The tail is a garnish: dried spinach at 0.05%, the equivalent of 0.45% spinach, dried blueberry at 0.05%, equivalent to 0.3% blueberries, then nettle, parsley, rosemary, turmeric and spearmint at trace level. Yucca extract at 0.02% closes it.

The added panel is dosed in print, with vitamins A, D3 and E declared and vitamin E at 70mg among them. Behind those come zinc at 100mg, iron at 60mg, manganese at 50mg, copper at 8mg, iodine at 2.5mg and selenium at 0.1mg. Mixed tocopherols keep the fats fresh without resorting to a synthetic preservative.

The analysis itself is where the label runs short. Protein, fat, fibre at 2.0%, ash at 8.0% and moisture at 9.0% are all printed, and then it stops. Owners of large breed pups look first for calcium on a growth food. This label does not carry it, so a big-pup rearing plan needs that number from the maker. No energy figure is declared, so 376 kcal per 100g is our own reckoning, and it lands right on the puppy kibble typical.

One quiet strength: the vegetable stock and alfalfa in the middle of the list are specific entries, and so is the dried carrot. Nothing here hides behind a category term, and on a growth food that clarity counts for a lot.

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

How fast you get through it keeps moving. A puppy's portion is set by the adult weight they are growing towards, not by what the scales say today. Feed to the bag's printed chart, and let your pup's shape say whether to go up or down from there. That guide runs from 35g a day for the smallest pups to 840g a day at the very top of its range.