Webbox Natural Dry Complete Adult: Turkey With Wholegrains & Vegetables review

Our banding puts both bags in the Good band, and the reasoning reads straight off the label. One named meat meal does the heavy lifting, over a cereal base, with a short tail of extras. That is exactly what a mainstream wholegrain kibble is, and the typical adult dry food finishes in the same band, so this bag sits right where the shelf does. The turkey edges ahead of the chicken inside that band, mostly on the strength of its bigger declared meat meal. Neither bag is trying to be a boutique recipe. Where a dog thrives on plain food, that is no criticism at all.

Ingredients, as declared: Turkey Meal (27%), Maize, Barley, Rice (14%), Chicken Fat, Beet Pulp, Gravy, Salmon Oil, Dried Peas, Dried Carrots, Linseed, Minerals, Seaweed, Prebiotic FOS, Prebiotic MOS, Yucca extract, Rosemary Extract, Citrus Extract, Marigold Extract.

The meat in both bags is a meal, the dried and pre-cooked form, and that works in the buyer's favour on a label like this. The number you read is close to the amount that survives into the finished kibble, not a fresh weight that mostly evaporates in the oven. Chicken meal is declared at 22% with fresh chicken at 4%, chicken fat and chicken stock behind it; the turkey bag opens with turkey meal at 27%, the single biggest meat entry in the range.

Underneath the meat sits a proper cereal base. The starch comes from maize and barley plus either oats at 18% or rice at 14%, with brown rice at 7.5% in the chicken as well. These are middling ingredients, not poor ones. Oats and barley bring fibre along with a useful spread of micronutrients, and once cooked most dogs digest them without a second thought. Carbohydrate works out at 45.6% of dry matter for the chicken, with the turkey at 47.9%, either side of the 46.2% typical of an adult dry food.

A short, sensible tail closes the list. Linseed supplies plant omega 3, seaweed brings iodine and a spread of minerals, and FOS and MOS are the two prebiotics, both there to keep the useful gut bacteria fed. Yucca is the standard entry aimed at stool odour, while rosemary, citrus and marigold do the natural preserving and colour.

The supplement panel is fully dosed in print. Vitamin A at 19000 IU, vitamin D3 at 1900 IU and vitamin E at 110 mg per kilo. Zinc comes in at 278 mg, iron at 133 mg, manganese at 94 mg and copper at 28 mg. The trace elements come as sulphates and not as chelates, the everyday choice on a kibble at this level. Every one carries a printed figure, with none tucked behind a category.

The one thing the range does not do is keep every bag to a single animal. The chicken recipe manages it: chicken meal, fresh chicken, chicken fat and chicken stock, with nothing else animal on the whole list. The turkey recipe brings in chicken fat and salmon oil, plus a gravy that names no species at all, so it carries bird and fish beyond the turkey on the front. That matters only when you are pinning down what sets your dog off, and choosing the chicken steers around it easily enough.

Turkey meal opens the list at 27%, the largest meat entry Webbox declares in this range, though protein reads a little lower on the analysis at 24.0% as fed. Rice at 14% takes the place of the oats, and the recipe adds chicken fat, salmon oil and a gravy of unstated origin. Its transparency pillar reads Outstanding, with value in step with the overall in Good, and moisture is not declared, so the dry matter readings here rest on the usual 8% assumption for a kibble.

The chicken is £2.00 a kilo and the turkey £2.42. The chicken comes in 2kg bags and a 15kg sack, the turkey in 2kg bags.

For a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition, the standard maintenance estimate (110 × bodyweight^0.75) gives about 840 kcal a day. That is about 226 grams a day on the chicken bag, and 233 grams on the turkey. The chicken works out at roughly £0.45 a day and the turkey at £0.56. The label's own table asks 165 to 280 grams for a dog between 10kg and 20kg, and if they disagree, trust the waistline you can feel.