Waitrose Puppy Grain Free review

The middle of the puppy kibble field falls in our Good band, and this bag falls there too, sitting above that midpoint rather than at it. Transparency reads Outstanding. Value reads Good and protein and processing Average.

What the label gives and withholds explains that position. The ingredients are specific, with the chicken split into its fresh share and the plant entries named one by one, and that is what lifts it. The analysis, on the other hand, prints protein, fat and fibre, then stops. With no ash, no moisture and no calcium to work from, its numbers cannot be lined up against a food that declares in full. A more complete panel would tell us more, and on the evidence of the recipe it would probably do the bag a favour.

Ingredients, as declared: Chicken (52%, of which 26% Fresh Chicken), Sweet Potato (30%), Poultry Fat, Beet Pulp (4%), Linseed (3%), Chicken Gravy, Minerals, Alfalfa, Yucca Extract (0.02%), Glucosamine (0.02%), Chondroitin (0.01%).

The headline is chicken at 52%, and the label usefully splits it: 26% of the recipe goes in as fresh chicken. Fresh chicken is largely water before cooking, so most of what that half contributes cooks away, while the remainder of the 52%, already dried, carries proportionally more protein into the finished kibble. Protein is declared at 30.0% as fed, a solid figure for a growth food.

Sweet potato at 30% is the whole starch story. It binds the kibble, brings its own vitamins and fibre with it, and keeps the recipe clear of cereal, which is the point of the bag. Beet pulp at 4% adds a gentle, widely tolerated fibre, and linseed at 3% brings plant omega 3 along with more fibre. Both are at shares big enough to do real work.

Two entries want a careful eye from allergy-minded owners. Poultry fat names no species, so while chicken is the only meat declared by name, that fat could come from another bird. It matters for an exclusion trial, though it will not trouble a pup with a simple preference. Chicken gravy alongside it does name its bird and is there for palatability.

Alfalfa, yucca extract at 0.02%, glucosamine at 0.02% and chondroitin at 0.01% finish the list. The joint pair sits at the token end of the scale, well short of a working dose. Read it as the maker showing intent for a growing skeleton.

The declaration is the short part of this label. Protein at 30.0%, fat at 16.0% and fibre at 3.0% are printed as fed, then nothing: no ash, no moisture and no calcium. The missing calcium matters most on a food sold for pups of every size. Large breed growth is decided by that line, and a claim about big pups cannot rest on a number the pack does not print. Energy is declared rather than estimated, at 380 kcal per 100g, which sits close to the puppy kibble typical of 376.

£3.83 a kilo, in a 2kg bag.

Puppy portions are set by the adult size a dog is heading for as much as by the weight they are today. Follow the feeding chart, and let the condition of your pup fine-tune it from there. This label frames its chart around a pup reaching half of their expected adult weight, and the amounts run up to 960g a day at the largest end.