Walker & Drake Cold Pressed: Ocean Fish review

The chicken and the duck earn our Excellent band, which puts them above the middle of the cold-pressed field, while the ocean fish lands level with that middle in our Good band. What lifts it is the named dried meat leading every list, a fully itemised vitamin and trace element panel, and a starch load lighter than the category usually carries. The plant-heavy middle of the label, where potato and sweet potato do a great deal of the work, is what stops it climbing further. On the chicken and the duck, transparency reads Outstanding and protein and processing Excellent. The fish reads Excellent for transparency and Good for protein and processing, and nutritional balance is Good throughout.

Ingredients, as declared: Dried Ocean Fish 35%, Sweet Potato, Potato, Pea Protein, Brewers Yeast, Beet Pulp, Salmon Oil, FOS Inulin, Yeast Bio-Mos, Psyllium Husk Powder, Apple, Carrot, Tomato, Seaweed, Cranberry, Flavour Bioflavex, Glucosamine, Fenugreek, Green Tea Extract, Fennel Seed, Blueberry, Yucca Schidigera, Chondroitin, Marigold Powder

Cold pressing is the reason this food takes the shape it does. Ingredients are ground and pressed together at low temperature and never cooked or expanded. That is gentler on the nutrients heat damages, and it produces a dense pellet that falls apart when it meets water. Owners of fast eaters tend to find that behaviour reassuring, and the format has a loyal following because of it.

The meat is dried before it is weighed. Chicken at 40%, duck at 39% and ocean fish at 35% therefore describe the finished pellet, not a wet weight that shrinks away in production. That distinction is worth a lot on a label, and it is why protein converts to 35.6% of dry matter on all three recipes despite the meat shares differing.

Wheat and barley are absent, and their place is taken by sweet potato and potato. Carbohydrate converts to 40.0% of dry matter on the chicken recipe, 39.6% on the duck and 37.0% on the ocean fish. All three sit under the 43.2% typical for cold-pressed food. Beet pulp and psyllium husk supply the fibre, and brewers yeast brings B vitamins along with a savoury note most dogs take to.

FOS inulin and yeast Bio-Mos are both prebiotics, in there to feed gut bacteria and not the dog directly. Behind them the lists turn to apple, carrot, tomato, seaweed and cranberry, then fenugreek, green tea extract, fennel seed, blueberry, yucca and marigold powder. At that end of an ingredients list these are there for character, though the seaweed is a genuine iodine source.

Where the three recipes part company is the fat. The chicken takes poultry fat, a category term covering any domestic bird, so duck, goose or turkey cannot be ruled out. The duck uses rapeseed oil and keeps its label to a single animal. The ocean fish uses salmon oil and adds pea protein, a plant source that props up the protein figure. Whole egg powder appears in the chicken recipe alone.

The additive declaration is unusually full for this format, with a per-kilo figure printed against every vitamin and every trace element and no vague phrase covering the lot. Calcium converts to 1.67% of dry matter on the chicken, 2.22% on the duck and 2.00% on the ocean fish. That spread follows how much bone each dried meat brings with it. Glucosamine and chondroitin sit roughly two thirds of the way down each list without a dose against them, which reads as supportive rather than therapeutic.

Dried ocean fish at 35%, with pea protein added behind the potato and salmon oil supplying the fat. Crude ash is declared at 13.0%, the highest here, which fits a dried fish bringing its own bone along. Carbohydrate converts to 37.0% of dry matter, the lightest starch load in the range. For a dog steered away from poultry, fish is often the answer, though this label stops at the category and never names the species.

The chicken is £5.80 a kilo and the duck and ocean fish are £6.20. Bags come in 2kg, 6kg and 10kg.

A 15kg adult dog in moderate condition needs about 840 kcal a day, taking 110 × bodyweight^0.75 as the standard maintenance estimate. On all three recipes that comes to roughly 233 grams, or £1.35 a day on the chicken and £1.45 on the duck and the ocean fish. For a 10 to 20kg dog the maker's own low activity guide asks 161 to 270 grams a day.