Wilsons Puppy Cold Pressed review

This food settles in our Good band, a step behind the middle of its own field, which reaches Excellent. Naming salmon first, printing real doses on the functional extras and the joint pair, and pressing the pellet instead of baking it are what earn the place. What holds it there is a starch base leaning on pea flour and tapioca, plus an animal fraction that is only moderate. Transparency is the standout at Outstanding. Nutritional balance reads Average, while protein and processing reads Good and so does value, which fits a food that does most things competently and nothing dramatically.

Ingredients, as declared: Salmon (19%), sweet potato, pea flour, tapioca, chicken protein meal (12%), rapeseed oil, beet fibre, salmon oil, carrot, seaweed, pea fibre, chicory, minerals, inulin, DL-methionine (500 mg/kg), mannan-oligosaccharides (500 mg/kg), postbiotic yeast (500 mg/kg), glucosamine (400 mg/kg), chondroitin sulphate (300 mg/kg), yucca schidigera, natural antioxidants (tocopherol extracts and rosemary extract), thyme, carnitine (50 mg/kg), cranberry, dandelion root, marigold yellow, ginger, turmeric.

Salmon at 19% leads, and it is the only entry on the list carrying a percentage besides the chicken protein meal. That is a step back from the adult range, where nearly every ingredient is numbered, and it means the starch entries behind the meat are ordered but not quantified. The list is still perfectly readable; it just asks you to take a little more on trust.

The second animal is chicken protein meal at 12%. The water is out of it already, and that lifts the protein above what its place on the list would suggest. Between the salmon and the meal, the recipe is drawing on two species, which is worth registering if the fish lead was the reason you picked it up. Salmon oil later in the list keeps the long chain omega 3 fats topped up, and those matter more in a growing dog than in a settled one.

Sweet potato, pea flour and tapioca carry the pellet. Of the three, sweet potato gives the most back, with fibre and beta carotene alongside its starch. Pea flour is milled from roasted peas and does add protein. For a dog, though, plant protein never matches animal protein, so read it as support and not as substance. Tapioca is starch and not much besides. Its job here is to hold the pellet together.

The functional tail is genuinely well specified for a puppy food. Mannan-oligosaccharides at 500 mg/kg and a postbiotic yeast at 500 mg/kg cover the gut alongside chicory and inulin. Glucosamine at 400 mg/kg and chondroitin sulphate at 300 mg/kg look after joints while a young frame is still forming. Carnitine sits at 50 mg/kg, and DL-methionine at 500 mg/kg balances the amino acids. Yucca schidigera is in there for stool odour. Preserving is handled by tocopherol and rosemary extracts, with no synthetic antioxidant involved.

The mineral panel mixes forms and does not commit to one. Iron arrives as a sulphate at 80mg, and zinc as a sulphate at 70mg with a further 30mg as a glycine chelate. Manganese comes as 7mg of sulphate and 3mg of chelate, copper as 5mg of sulphate and 3mg of chelate, and iodine as calcium iodate at 1.5mg. Chelated forms are generally the better absorbed, so a recipe pairing the two is hedging sensibly and not cutting a corner. Vitamin A comes in at 18000 IU, vitamin D3 at 1500 IU and vitamin E at 350mg.

Protein is declared at 25% and fat at 14%, converting to 27.2% and 15.2% of dry matter. Carbohydrate comes to 46.1% and energy to 378 kcal per 100g. Those protein and fat figures are the same ones Wilsons uses across its adult recipes, so the puppy version is distinguished by its ingredients and its extras rather than by a richer analysis. What the label does not print anywhere is a calcium figure, and in a food aimed squarely at growth that is the single number most worth having.

£6.17 a kilo. It comes in a 2kg bag and a 10kg bag, with the 10kg also sold three at a time.

The label's own guide is set out by the puppy's weight, running from 75 grams a day at 4.5kg through 129 grams at 10kg and 235 grams at 30kg, up to 345 grams at 50kg.