Sneyd's Wonderdog Wonderdog Adult Grain Free Beef review

Our scoring puts this one in Good alongside the middle of the adult dry category, though the pillars behind it stand some way apart. Protein and processing and nutritional balance both read Average, while transparency reads Excellent and value Good. The recipe is genuinely cereal free, the joint pair is declared with real percentages, and the analysis stands up with protein at 25.3% and fat at 12.1% of dry matter. Naming is what holds it back. The meat meal pins down beef and leaves the rest to the category, and the poultry fat never says which bird, so much of the animal content cannot be read off the label.

Ingredients, as declared: Meat Meal (30% including minimum 14% Beef), Potato (23%), Sweet Potato (22%), Dried Sugar Beet Pulp, Poultry Fat, Peas, Brewers Yeast, Fish Meal, Whole Linseed, Vitamins & Minerals, (0.05% Glucosamine & 0.025% Chondrotin).

Meat meal at 30% is the backbone here, and meal is a concentrated ingredient. With the water already gone, its protein per gram is far higher than fresh meat listed at the same size. The label guarantees a minimum of 14% beef inside that figure, which is more than a bare meat meal listing would give you, though the balance is left to the category.

Starch comes from two roots, potato at 23% and sweet potato at 22%. Behind them come peas and dried sugar beet pulp, and cereal is absent from the list altogether. Carbohydrate converts to 47.8% of dry matter against a 46.2% typical for adult dry food. That is a reasonable place for a grain-free recipe to land.

The added fat comes from poultry fat. Further down, fish meal doubles as a second animal protein and a source of marine omega 3, working alongside the whole linseed. Both are useful in their own right, and both matter to anyone shopping for a single-animal food, because between them they put bird and fish into a bag with beef on the front.

Brewers yeast is the small entry worth knowing about. It brings B vitamins and a savoury note most dogs find hard to argue with, which helps a plainer recipe get eaten. Ash converting to 11.0% of dry matter points to plenty of bone-derived mineral inside the meal. That is normal enough for a meal-based food, though it does mean slightly less of the bowl is protein and fat.

Nothing on this label earns more attention than the joint pair. Glucosamine at 0.05% and chondroitin at 0.025% are printed as percentages of the recipe, an honest way to declare them. They arrive in the bowl every day, with no jar on a shelf to remember. The trace elements are dosed in print too: zinc at 100mg, iron at 60mg, manganese at 50mg and copper at 8mg per kilo. They come in oxide and sulphate forms, while the chelates turn up higher up the shelf.

£3.20 a kilo, sold in a 15kg sack and a 2.5kg bag, with a sample pack available.

A 15kg adult dog in moderate condition would eat about 258 grams a day on an estimate of 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance figure). That works out at £0.82 a day. The label suggests 142 to 227 grams for a dog of 11kg to 20kg, so start nearer the label's figure and let the waistline decide from there.