AniForte PureNature Adult: Farms Lamb review

All five recipes settle in our Outstanding band and finish close to one another, so the choice is about which animal your dog does best on rather than which can is better made. Wet is a category that does well with us, and the typical adult wet food reaches our Excellent band, so this range stands a step above that mark. Transparency reads Outstanding on three of the cans and Excellent on the lamb and the turkey, which is what a fully itemised label earns. Nutritional balance reads Outstanding on all five, and protein and processing reads Outstanding on Country Beef and Wild Forest with the other three a shade behind in Excellent.

Ingredients, as declared: 60.0% Lamb (Rumen, Heart, Liver, Offal), 28.3% Lamb Broth, 3.0% Pumpkin, 2.0% Carrots, 2.0% Plums, 2.0% Rice, 2% Chestnuts, 0.1% Eggshell Powder, Herbs Rubbed (Parsley, Rosemary, Watercress), 0.1% Safflower Oil, Coconut Flakes, Silica, Omega-3 Fish Meal, Seaweed Lime.

The construction is the same in every can. One named animal makes up 60%. The label goes further than most and lists the parts it uses: heart, liver, lung and tripe on the beef, necks and stomachs on the chicken, rumen and offal on the lamb. Then comes the same animal's stock, given a percentage of its own, 25.2% to 28.3% depending on the recipe.

Protein converts to between 40.0% and 48.0% of dry matter across the five, and fat to between 24.8% and 31.4%. That is a rich, meat led analysis by any wet food standard, and the offal is a large part of why. Liver is dense in the vitamins and trace minerals a dog needs. A range built like this can do without a supplement panel.

What plant matter there is stays small and gets named. Fennel, carrots, courgettes and potatoes appear on the beef; broccoli, cucumber and quinoa on the turkey; pumpkin, plums and chestnuts on the lamb. Estimated carbohydrate runs from 2.5% of dry matter on the lamb up to 24.0% on the beef and chicken, against 15.8% for the typical adult wet food. The recipes differ more in their starch than in their meat.

The finishing touches follow one pattern in every can: eggshell powder and a calcified seaweed for minerals, a named oil, spirulina or sea buckthorn, silica, an omega-3 addition and a rubbed herb mix. Almost all of it sits at or around 0.1%. That is seasoning level. Meat is what carries these cans, and the analysis says the same.

There is no added vitamin and mineral panel on these labels. Meat and offal this heavy bring a good deal of the micronutrition with them. A short list can be a sign of strength for that reason. It does mean there is no printed dose to check against.

Lamb at 60% with 28.3% lamb broth, and much the leanest carbohydrate in the range at an estimated 2.5% of dry matter alongside the highest protein at 48.0%. Pumpkin, plums and chestnuts fill the plant side, 2% rice sits among them, and its omega-3 comes from fish meal.

Every recipe comes in a 400 g can. We have no per kilo figure for this range at the moment, so there is no day rate to set beside it.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition would eat roughly 758 to 928 grams a day depending on the recipe. We put a dog that size at about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). Calories are not declared on these labels, so the energy behind that estimate is our own figure.