Wilsons Premium Cold Pressed: Chicken review

Our Good band takes four of the seven, and the middle of the cold-pressed field settles there too. The chicken, the turkey and duck and the venison and trout go a step better in Excellent, so these recipes sit among the general run of the category. Detailed percentages, named meats and a genuinely informative additive panel are what hold the position. A starch share at or a little above the category norm, together with a moderate animal fraction, is what stops them climbing further. They spread a little wider than a shared method might suggest, so the named animal on the pack is still the useful thing to choose on.

Ingredients, as declared: Dried ground chicken (30%), sweet potato (28.5%), peas (25.5%), chicken hydrolysate (6%), chicken oil (3%), beet fibre (2%), carrot (1%), kale (0.5%), apple (0.5%), seaweed, (0.5%) pea fibre (0.5%), postbiotic - inactivated yeast saccharomyces cerevisiae (4 g/kg) (0.4%), vitamins and minerals (1.8%), chicory, inulin, DL-methionine (530 mg/kg), prebiotic - mannan-oligosaccharides (500 mg/kg), glucosamine (400 mg/kg), chondroitin sulphate (300 mg/kg), yucca schidigera, natural antioxidants (tocopherol extracts and rosemary extract), L-tryptophan, thyme, carnitine (50 mg/kg), cranberry, dandelion root, marigold yellow, ginger, turmeric.

Cold pressing is the method behind all seven. The ingredients go into a pellet under pressure, at temperatures well below the ones conventional kibble is baked at. That is gentler on the vitamins and the fats. The finished pellet falls apart in water and never swells in the stomach. Owners of dogs that eat far too quickly are loyal to the format for that one reason.

The meat is declared as a dried ground meat, which is a concentrated ingredient rather than a fresh weight, so 30% dried chicken represents considerably more raw chicken than the number suggests. Every recipe then adds a hydrolysate of the same animal, between 4% and 6%. A hydrolysate is protein already broken into short fragments, which makes it both highly digestible and a strong palatant, and it is a large part of why cold-pressed food tends to go down so readily.

The starch base is where the recipes separate. Sweet potato and peas appear across most of the range, tapioca in three of them, rice in the Lamb, oats in the Haggis and potato flakes in the White Fish. In moderation peas are a decent source of fibre and a fair spread of nutrients, though at a quarter of a recipe they are doing structural work as much as nutritional. There is little in tapioca beyond starch. That is worth noticing when it sits high on a list.

The functional tail is the most generous part of these labels. An inactivated yeast postbiotic at 4 g/kg, mannan-oligosaccharides at 500 mg/kg and chicory inulin cover the gut side. Glucosamine at 400 mg/kg and chondroitin sulphate at 300 mg/kg cover the joints, and carnitine at 50 mg/kg the fat metabolism. DL-methionine handles the amino acid balance, with L-tryptophan in several recipes as well. Yucca schidigera takes the edge off stool odour. Tocopherol and rosemary extracts do the preserving, with nothing synthetic in that job.

Every bag carries the same additive panel, and it is better than most. Zinc, iron, manganese and copper are all chelates of lysine and glutamic acid, at 100, 80, 10 and 8 mg/kg respectively, and that form is absorbed better than the plain sulphates. Iodine comes as calcium iodate at 1.5 mg/kg. Vitamin A comes in at 18000 IU/kg, vitamin D3 at 1500 IU/kg and vitamin E at 350 mg/kg.

The analyses are close to identical by design, protein at 25% or 26% and fat at 14% throughout, converting to between 27.2% and 28.3% protein and 15.2% to 15.5% fat on a dry matter basis. Carbohydrate lands between 43.4% and 46.7% of dry matter, which is at or a little above the 43.2% typical for cold-pressed food. Only the Turkey & Duck declares its moisture, at 9.5%, so the dry matter figures on the other six are worked from an assumed 8%. That same recipe is also the only one printing a calcium figure, at 1.66% of dry matter.

Dried ground chicken at 30% is the largest meat entry anywhere in the range, and with chicken hydrolysate at 6% and chicken oil at 3% behind it, the animal side never leaves the one bird. Sweet potato at 28.5% and peas at 25.5% make up the rest. Energy runs to 381 kcal per 100g, the highest of the seven. Portions here are the smallest as a result.

The Chicken, Haggis and Lamb are £6.17 a kilo. The Salmon, Turkey & Duck, Venison & Trout and White Fish are £6.55 a kilo. All seven come in a 2kg bag and a 10kg bag, with the 10kg also sold three at a time.

For a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition the standard maintenance estimate is about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75). Across these seven recipes that works out at 220 to 243 grams, or £1.36 to £1.50 daily.