Alpha Spirit Complete Wet Meatballs: Beef with Sage review

All five recipes finish level with each other in our Excellent band, which is where the typical adult wet food lands as well. The range is holding station in a category that already scores well. Protein and processing reads Excellent across the five on the strength of that itemised 80% meat, and transparency comes back Outstanding on every tin. Nutritional balance reads Excellent or Outstanding depending on the recipe, and value reads Excellent.

The one figure keeping the range from climbing further is starch. Potato starch is doing the binding that turns mince into a meatball, and estimated carbohydrate lands between 18.1% and 26.1% of dry matter against a 15.8% typical for adult wet food. That is the trade you make for the format, and it is a modest one for a food that is still four-fifths meat.

Ingredients, as declared: Meat 80% (Chicken 40%, Pork 30%, Veal 10%), Potato Starch, Carrot, Pumpkin, Chard, Pepper, Gelatine, Beet Fibre, Sage (0.5%) and Minerals.

Eighty per cent meat is the headline and the label breaks it open every time. Chicken carries 40% of four recipes and 50% of the turmeric one, pork takes either 30% or 40%, and wherever a third animal appears it is named and declared at 10%. Nothing anywhere on these lists is left to a category term.

Protein converts to between 37.8% and 43.2% of dry matter with fat between 21.7% and 23.3%. That is a moderate, unforced analysis. That suits a dog who does not need a heavy dinner and it leaves room for the format to do the persuading.

Potato starch is the second entry on every list and it is there to hold the ball together. Pure starch brings little of nutritional value on its own, which is the honest reading of it, and it is also the reason these tins carry more carbohydrate than a plain meat loaf would.

The vegetables are real and named: carrot, pumpkin, chard and pepper, with beet fibre for bulk and gelatine to set the sauce around them. The herb or spice on the front of the tin is declared at 0.5%, a genuine inclusion at flavouring level.

The added panel is dosed in full on four labels: calcium at 0.18%, phosphorus at 0.14% and iron at 13 mg/kg. The vitamins follow, A at 1660 IU/kg, D at 150 IU/kg and E at 9.8 IU/kg. Chicken with Turmeric prints only the three vitamins, which reads like an omission on the label rather than a different recipe in the tin.

Chicken at 40%, pork at 30% and veal at 10%, with sage at 0.5%. The beef promised on the front is veal, and it is the smallest of the three meats in the tin.

£8.75 a kilo across all five recipes, in 400 g tins sold in packs of six.

As a guide, feeding a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition works out between £7.36 and £8.27 a day, which is roughly 841 to 945 grams depending on the recipe. The figure behind that is about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). None of the labels declares energy, so those portions rest on our estimates of 89 to 100 kcal per 100g.