Aflora Chicken Grain Free Dog Food

A grain-free complete food built around 55% chicken — the meatiest recipe in the Aflora range. It comes to us direct from the manufacturer in Lancashire: no middleman, no distributor margin. What you pay for is in the bag.

Chicken is the one most dogs get on with. It's leaner than the beef, gentler on sensitive tummies, and generally the sensible choice if you're switching foods for the first time.

Direct from the maker

Aflora is produced for us in Lancashire and shipped direct. There is no distributor, no middle warehouse, no reseller taking a cut on the way to the bag. That's why a 15 kg bag of a 55%-chicken grain-free food costs what it costs.

The gentlest recipe in the range

Chicken is the protein most dogs tolerate best. If your dog has had loose stools, itchy skin or a sensitive stomach on a previous food — or if you're moving to grain-free for the first time — this is the one to start with. Clean protein source, no common irritants.

Dogs don't get bored

The Chicken is 55% meat in total — 31% freshly prepared, 21% dried chicken, 3% chicken stock. The stock is where a lot of the depth of flavour comes from, and it's why dogs keep eating this food with the same enthusiasm in month three that they had in week one.

Why we stock it

Most of the dog food that passes through our shop has been through three or four hands before it reaches us — a manufacturer, a brand, a distributor, sometimes a wholesaler on top. Every hand adds a margin, and the margin comes out of the bag. Either the recipe gets cheaper, or the price goes up, or both.

Aflora is different because we buy it direct from the people who make it. A manufacturer in Lancashire who produces it to our specification, ships it straight to Cornwall, and doesn't sell it to anyone else under our name. The saving shows up in two places: in what we pay per bag, and in what's actually in the recipe.

The chicken recipe is 55% meat — 31% freshly prepared chicken, 21% dried chicken, 3% chicken stock. That's a substantial amount of real meat for the price, and higher than you'll find in most grain-free chicken foods at this tier. Read the ingredient decks on the shelf next to it and you'll see the difference.

It's named after Flora, my Airedale. Any food carrying a family name has to be one I'd feed my own dog, which is the only standard I trust when I'm choosing what to stock.

Why chicken, and why it's usually the one to start with

Chicken is the protein most dogs encounter earliest in life and tolerate best across a lifetime. It's lean, rich in B vitamins and iron, and easier on the digestive system than richer proteins like beef or lamb. If your dog has been on a supermarket food and you're trying a better-quality grain-free for the first time, chicken is the safest switch — it's the one least likely to cause the initial digestive wobble that sometimes happens when dogs move to a much richer recipe.

The herbs (marjoram, basil, oregano, sage, thyme, parsley — a 0.3% blend) aren't decoration. They're there for the natural antioxidant and antibacterial compounds herbs contribute, and they give the food a character you can smell when you open the bag. It's subtle, but it's there.

What you'll notice in the first few weeks

Dogs switching to Aflora from a lower-meat or grain-heavy food usually show three things within the first two to four weeks:

• Firmer, more consistent stools. Often within a few days. This is the clearest signal the food is being digested properly.
• Better coat condition. The omega 3 inclusion (from linseed plus a dedicated supplement) tends to show up as a softer, glossier coat by week four to six.
• Settled appetite. Dogs either eat the whole bowl or leave it — they don't linger, pick, or leave food for later. This is usually what people mean when they say a food "suits" a dog.

None of this is magic. It's what happens when a food has enough real meat in it, is cooked gently enough not to damage the protein, and doesn't contain the filler ingredients (wheat, maize, artificial preservatives) that a lot of dogs are quietly sensitive to.

A note on the protein figure

The crude protein on the bag reads 27%. If you're comparing labels, that'll look lower than some competitors advertising 30% or 32%. It's worth understanding why.

The crude protein number on any bag is the total protein in the recipe, but not all protein is equally digestible. A food with 30% protein made from rendered meat meal and pea protein concentrate may deliver less usable protein to the dog than a food with 27% protein made from fresh chicken and dried chicken meat.

27% is well above the minimum protein requirement for adult dogs set by FEDIAF (the European pet food standard) and AAFCO (the US equivalent) — both are around 18%. It's a sensible, properly balanced level for a food designed for everyday feeding across a wide range of dogs, not a figure inflated with cheap protein boosters to win label wars. The research section below goes into the digestibility question in more detail if you want it.

The meat, and how it's handled

The fresh chicken is collected from farms in refrigerated transport, arrives at the manufacturing site in Lancashire still cold, and is cooked at 82°C before being combined with the rest of the recipe. The temperature matters: cooking meat at 82°C protects the protein structure and keeps it digestible, whereas the industry-standard rendering process used for most dry dog foods runs at around 150°C and damages the protein in ways a dog's digestive system can feel. There's good published research on this, summarised below if you want the detail.

Grain-free, done properly

Grain-free doesn't automatically mean better. Plenty of grain-free foods simply swap wheat for pea protein concentrate and keep the meat content low. Aflora uses sweet potato as the main carbohydrate (26% of the recipe), with some white potato and whole peas (6%) alongside. Sweet potato is a complex carbohydrate that releases energy slowly, and it's generally well tolerated by dogs with sensitive digestion.

If your dog is doing fine on a good-quality grain-inclusive food, you don't need to switch. But if you've noticed loose stools, itchy skin or recurring ear trouble on a wheat-based food, a clean grain-free chicken recipe is the sensible first trial — four to six weeks is usually long enough to see whether it's helping.

What's not in it

No artificial colours. No artificial preservatives — preserved naturally with rosemary extract. No wheat, maize, rice, barley or soya. No meat derivatives of unnamed origin. No added sugars or salt.

FEEDING GUIDE

Daily amounts for adult dogs:

A 15 kg bag lasts a medium-sized dog around six to eight weeks. When switching from another food, transition gradually over two weeks — a sudden change is the most common cause of loose stools and is almost always avoidable.

COMPOSITION 

Ingredients: Chicken 55% (including freshly prepared chicken 31%, dried chicken 21%, chicken stock 3%), sweet potato 26%, peas 6%, potato, beet pulp, linseed, omega 3 supplement, minerals, herbs 0.3% (marjoram, basil, oregano, sage, thyme, parsley), fructo-oligosaccharides (FOS, 96 mg/kg), mannan-oligosaccharides (MOS, 24 mg/kg).

Analytical constituents: Crude protein 27%, crude fat 14%, crude fibre 4%, crude ash 7.5%, moisture 8%. Metabolisable energy 366 kcal/100g. Omega 6 fatty acids 2.3%, omega 3 fatty acids 1.3%. Calcium 1.4%, phosphorus 1%.

Nutritional additives per kg: Vitamin A 15,000 IU, vitamin D3 2,000 IU, vitamin E 95 IU. Zinc 50 mg, iron 50 mg, manganese 35 mg, copper 15 mg, iodine 1 mg, selenium 0.3 mg.

Supplied in a 15 kg brown paper bag. Up to 18 months' shelf life. Kibble size: 14 mm diameter, 5 mm thick.

THE RESEARCH, IF YOU WANT IT 

We mention gentle cooking and protein digestibility throughout the page, so here's the evidence underneath those claims in case you want to check our workings.

Dry dog foods made with fresh meat as the main animal protein source test at around 89–90% protein digestibility in feeding trials — meaning dogs absorb around 89–90% of the protein listed on the bag (Faber et al., 2010, measuring beef, pork, chicken, salmon and pollock diets; the chicken result was 88.9%). Diets built on rendered meat meal typically test in the 74–80% range. Murray et al. (1998) found a 9-percentage-point gap specifically in poultry — 83% digestibility for a fresh poultry diet versus 74% for a poultry meal diet — the largest fresh-vs-rendered gap of any species studied.

The reason sits in the cooking temperature. Cooking meat at 70–80°C unfolds the protein structure in a way that makes it easier for digestive enzymes to break down. Cooking meat at 100°C or above causes protein oxidation and aggregation, which makes it harder for digestive enzymes to work. A 2008 study on beef showed a 58% drop in pepsin digestion rate after 45 minutes at 100°C (Santé-Lhoutellier et al., 2008). A 2013 feeding trial in minipigs showed faster amino acid absorption after meals of meat cooked at 75°C versus 95°C (Bax et al., 2013).

The 82°C cooking temperature Aflora uses sits in the range the research identifies as optimal. The industry-standard rendering process, used for most dry dog foods, runs at around 150°C.