Waitrose Complete & Balanced Adult Dry review

Our scoring leaves this in the Average band, one rung under the Good band where most adult dry foods gather. The reason is worth spelling out. Protein and processing reads Poor here, while both nutritional balance and transparency settle at Average, because each of those three leans on knowing what is actually in the food. Cereals, meat and animal derivatives, oils and fats and derivatives of vegetable origin are legal category terms covering the whole quality range, from excellent material to very ordinary. A label written in them cannot show which end it belongs to. The analysis gives no cause for concern in itself: protein converts to 27.2% of dry matter, fat to 10.9% and carbohydrate to an estimated 47.8%, against the 46.2% typical of adult dry food. Fed to a healthy adult dog with no known sensitivities, it works as an everyday food.

Ingredients, as declared: Cereals (35% Wholegrains), Meat and Animal Derivatives (27%, of which 4% Chicken Meal), Oils and Fats, Derivatives of Vegetable Origin (4% Beet Pulp, 0.02% Yucca Extract), Vegetables (4% Pea Flour), Seeds (1% Linseed), Minerals.

Cereals at 35% wholegrains is the opening entry, and the wholegrain part is a genuine positive, since leaving the bran and germ in brings more fibre and more trace minerals than a refined grain would. What the word cereals will not tell you is which grain. Rice, maize or wheat: any of them could be in there, and the answer can shift from batch to batch.

Meat and animal derivatives at 27% is a respectable quantity of animal content for an everyday kibble. The legal definition behind the phrase takes in the fleshy parts of slaughtered warm blooded land animals, plus whatever comes of processing the carcass. That description stretches across excellent material and very plain material alike. Only 4% of it is identified, as chicken meal, so the remainder stays anonymous.

Oils and fats tells the same story on the fat side. Dogs use animal fat well and plant oils have their place, but the pack does not say which is in the bag, and fat is one of the ingredients most worth knowing about. It is declared at 10.0% as fed, gentle for a dry food and well matched to a dog with a modest exercise routine.

The named parts of the list are all small and all sensible. Beet pulp at 4% is the fibre, pea flour is at 4%, linseed at 1% brings plant omega 3 and yucca extract closes at 0.02%. Roasted peas are milled into pea flour, and it does bring protein with it. For a dog, meat protein beats plant protein, so read pea flour as a supporting ingredient.

Minerals are grouped without doses, so there is no reading the zinc, copper or selenium level off the pack. With so much of this list at category level, that follows. It is also the one thing that most sets this bag apart from the own label recipes that name everything.

£1.76 a kilo, sold in a 2.5kg bag.

Take a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition needing about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate) and the portion comes to roughly 246 grams, or £0.43 a day. The pack's own table asks 207 to 360 grams for a dog between 12kg and 25kg, so start on the label and adjust by condition.