Pets at Home has signed up celebrity farmer Jimmy Doherty to front its new advertising campaign.

The ‘What’s in the recipe?’ advertisement encourages dog owners to read the labels of their pet’s food in order to make an informed decision. In the ad, Mr Doherty recreates a cookery-style show in a countryside kitchen to demonstrate the types of ingredients contained in some dogs’ chicken dinners.

He mixes a range of ingredients, taken from an economy dry dog food recipe example, including cereals, meat and animal derivatives and derivatives of vegetable origin before finally adding four per cent chicken and a tagline, ‘Always check the ingredients’.

Meanwhile, an investigation by Pets at Home has revealed a number of differences between the ingredients in leading dry dog food products, whilst further research found that a quarter of pet owners have never read the ingredients label on their dog’s dry food.

Pets at Home has also launched an online recipe calculator with the help of Havas Helia, allowing customers to compare the ingredients and feeding costs per day of their current food against a number of other dry dog food brands.