Yarrah Adult Vega review

Our scoring puts this in the Average band, below the Good band where the typical adult dry food settles. Nearly all of that gap traces back to the single decision the food is built on. There is no animal protein here to reward, so protein and processing reads Poor however carefully the rest is assembled. Look past the band, though, and the analysis is steady: carbohydrate converts to 41.0% of dry matter where the typical adult dry food runs at 46.2%. This is a food our scoring cannot flatter, not a food thrown together.

Ingredients, as declared: Soy beans*, green peas*, tapioca*, coconut fat*, rice protein*, lupin*, sunflower seed husks*, minerals, brewer's yeast, baobab*, dried seaweed*. * = organic

Soy beans open the list and do the heavy lifting, with green peas and rice protein behind them, and protein finishes at 26.1% of dry matter. That is a normal figure for a kibble of any kind. The shortfall against a meat food is a matter of quality. Plant proteins carry the essential amino acids in less generous proportions, and that is exactly why the recipe leans on three sources.

Tapioca is the binder, starch with very little else attached, and it sits behind the protein sources on the list. Sunflower seed husks push crude fibre up to 7.9% of dry matter, a fair amount, and that is a deliberate move on a legume-led recipe.

Coconut fat is the energy source and the only fat named, so nothing marine and nothing unnamed finds its way in. Fat lands at 16.3% of dry matter, so this is not a thin bowl by any measure.

The small entries earn their place. Brewer's yeast brings B vitamins, as good a natural source as there is, along with a little protein of its own. Baobab adds fibre and antioxidants, and dried seaweed is on for its minerals, iodine in particular. Taurine is added too, which counts for more on a meat-free food than on a meaty one, since a dog normally takes taurine straight from animal tissue.

The one honest limitation sits on the panel rather than in the bowl. Every vitamin and trace element figure is a bare number with no unit printed beside it. Taurine is present and dosed, and so are vitamin E and the trace elements, though the amounts cannot be checked. Everything else here is unusually plain spoken, which makes the omission stand out.

£9.88 a kilo, sold in 2kg and 10kg bags.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition needs about 244 grams a day, assuming around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That puts feeding at £2.41 a day. Yarrah's own table runs from 450 to 600 grams a day for a 40kg dog depending on how much work it does, so portion to the waistline.