Amazon Wet Chunks in Gravy: Beef review

Both cans come to rest in our Average band, two steps under the Excellent band the typical adult wet food reaches. Protein and processing reads Poor on both cans, and the reasons overlap. The animal content hides behind a category term, the cereals are unnamed, and the estimated carbohydrate runs to 25.5% of dry matter where the typical adult wet food sits at 15.8%. What the analysis does show is decent enough, with protein at 37.5% of dry matter, and dogs have eaten happily from cans like these for generations. The score turns on what the tin actually names, and the animal column is where this one stays general.

Ingredients, as declared: Meat and Animal Derivatives 28% (4% Beef), Cereals, Vegetable Protein Extracts, Minerals, Various Sugars.

Five entries make up the recipe and three of them are categories. Meat and animal derivatives at 28% can be drawn from any warm blooded land animal, with only the 4% of named beef or poultry fixed in place. Cereals can be any grain, and vegetable protein extracts give no clue as to which plant the protein came from or how it was taken out. Any of those can be swapped between batches, and the label will read exactly as it does now.

The analysis reads better than the list does. Protein converts to 37.5% of dry matter and fat to 22.5%, both respectable for a wet food. The estimated carbohydrate is the figure that stands out, at 25.5% of dry matter against 15.8% for the typical adult wet food, and that is where the unnamed cereals show themselves.

Various sugars are on the list, and they are there for palatability rather than nutrition. A dog that has gone off its food will often eat more enthusiastically for them, which is exactly why a maker reaches for them. It is a plain thing to know about a can you are feeding every day.

The added panel is fully dosed, running from vitamin A, vitamin D3 and vitamin E through zinc, manganese, copper and iodine, each with a printed amount. Crude ash converts to 12.5% of dry matter, in line with what a mineral fortified wet recipe usually shows.

Beef is the named species here, at 4% of the can inside the 28% of meat and animal derivatives. The analysis and the additive panel are identical to the poultry can, so the name on the front is the whole of the difference.

£10.48 a kilo on the beef and £1.37 a kilo on the poultry, in 1.24 kg cans sold singly and in packs of 6 and 12.

As a guide, feeding a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition works out at £10.12 a day on the beef and £1.32 a day on the poultry. The assumption is about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). Either way that is roughly 966 grams a day, about four fifths of a can, and the label's own guide for a dog of 15 to 20 kg is 960 to 1190 grams.