Wainwright's Wainwright’s Puppy Freeze Dried Raw review

This lands in our Outstanding band, and it earns that on a label where the first seven entries are all named and all percentaged and the animal content is a single species. Protein and processing, nutritional balance and transparency each read Outstanding, and value comes in alongside them. Puppy freeze dried food is too small a corner of the shelf to set a fair typical against, so the reading stands on the label itself. That label offers high protein, a declared calcium figure and a genuinely short list of things a young dog has to digest.

Ingredients, as declared: Chicken (60%), Potato (15%), Sweet Potato (6%), Peas (6%), Carrot (5%), Apple (3%), Pear (2%) Yeasts, Yucca, Beet Pulp, Chicory Extract, Dandelion Root, Green Tea, Hawthorn Leaf, Seaweed, Glucosamine, Chondroitin

Freeze drying keeps raw ingredients raw. The food is frozen and the ice lifts away as vapour, so nothing is cooked at kibble temperatures. The pieces stay light and shelf stable until water goes back in at the bowl. For a puppy that means a raw-style meal without a freezer full of mince and without the surface hygiene that raw feeding demands.

Chicken at 60% is the single animal on the list, and there is no second species hiding in a fat or an oil further down. For the great majority of young dogs, no meat is easier to digest or more tempting to eat. At the stage where meals need to be uneventful, that is exactly what you want. One honest caveat: chicken is fed so widely that intolerance to it turns up more often than to any other meat. Keep that in mind if skin or gut trouble ever appears.

The plant side is short and every entry is named with a percentage. Potato at 15% and sweet potato at 6% supply the starch. Peas at 6% bring plant protein and fibre. Carrot at 5% adds soluble fibre and antioxidants, then apple at 3% and pear at 2%. After that come the functional entries. Chicory extract is there as a prebiotic and seaweed carries iodine and trace minerals. Green tea brings its antioxidant catechins, and dandelion root and hawthorn leaf are traditional herbal inclusions. No percentage is printed against any of that tail, so treat it as light support.

The analysis is built for growth. Moisture is declared at 5%, so protein converts to 43.2% of dry matter, fat to 23.2% and the carbohydrate estimate to 20.9%, with energy at 421 kcal per 100g. Calcium is declared at 2% of dry matter. That is generous for a slow growing giant breed and the likely reason Wainwright's writes the guide for medium breed puppies. For a medium framed pup it gives the mineral supply a fast growing skeleton is asking for.

The added panel is modest and properly printed: vitamin A at 2500IU, D3 at 250IU, E at 50mg and biotin at 0.1mg per kilo. Behind those sit zinc at 15mg, iron at 10mg, manganese, copper and iodine, then a selenised yeast selenium at 0.02mg. Preservation is done naturally, with tocopherol extracts from vegetable oils at 150mg, and rosemary oil extract at 4mg is the only sensory addition. Glucosamine and chondroitin close the ingredient list, unusual in a puppy food and a reasonable nod to the joints of a dog that will grow into a bigger frame.

The 500g pack works out at £37.98 a kilo and the 150g at £38.60 a kilo.

A puppy's needs change constantly. Read the pack chart against your puppy's current weight, and go back to it whenever the scales move. A growing dog should be filling out steadily rather than quickly, and the portion that keeps them on that line is the right one whatever the bag holds.