Ava Wet Food Adult Sensitive: Fish Pâté review

Both entries here read Good on our scoring. Wet food is a strong category for us and its middle sits a band higher in Excellent, so a fish recipe with its meat percentages printed and no cereal in sight still reads well here. The multipack listing reads Excellent for protein and processing where the single pâté reads Good. Everything else is level: nutritional balance Excellent, transparency Outstanding and value Good on both, over the same fish-led recipe.

Ingredients, as declared: White Fish (64%), Potato (14.5%), Sunflower Oil, Minerals, Beet Pulp, Whole Dried Egg, Chicory Root Extract (as a source of Prebiotic Fructooligosaccharide) (0.040%), Yeasts (as a source of Beta-glucans and Prebiotic Mannanoligosaccharide) (0.028%), Glucosamine (0.013%), Chondroitin (0.005%), Yucca Extract (0.005%), Cranberry Extract (0.002%), Green Tea Extract (0.001%), Pomegranate Extract (0.001%)

Fish leads from the front. The white fish recipe declares 64% white fish, and the salmon recipe splits its animals between salmon at 35% and white fish at 29%, which is a genuinely fish-forward tin either way. Protein converts to 36.4% of dry matter and fat to 22.7%, a rich, meaty analysis once the water is taken out.

Potato at 14.5% is the only real carbohydrate on the list, with beet pulp behind it for fibre and whole dried egg adding a little more protein. No wheat, rice or maize appears anywhere, so a dog kept off cereals is fine here. The trade is that carbohydrate still converts to an estimated 28.2% of dry matter against the 15.8% typical of adult wet food, because potato is doing all the binding a pâté needs.

The gut-focused extras are why the word sensitive is on the tin. Inulin comes from the chicory root extract. It is a soluble fibre, and the bacteria in the large gut live on it. The yeast fraction works the same job from the other side, with its beta-glucans and mannanoligosaccharides. Both carry printed percentages, at 0.04% and 0.028%, which is more candour than most tins offer for ingredients this small.

Next come glucosamine at 0.013% and chondroitin at 0.005%, then trace-level extracts of yucca, cranberry, green tea and pomegranate. Read all of it as a garnish. A dog already on a joint supplement from the vet should stay on it, with these tins as the dinner underneath.

The added panel is dosed in full, with vitamin D3 at 300IU and vitamin E at 100mg. Chelated forms are used for the zinc at 16.05mg, the copper at 2mg and the manganese at 1.95mg, generally the better absorbed versions. Calcium converts to 1.0% of dry matter, a comfortable level for an adult dog. Carrageenan, guar gum and the potassium salts are simply there to hold the pâté together.

The white fish pâté bought as a single tin, the same 64% fish recipe with sunflower oil, sold on its own instead of by the six. Its protein and processing reads Good rather than Excellent, though the recipe and the analysis match the multipack exactly.

The multipack works out at £5.48 a kilo in 395g tins sold six to a pack, and the single fish pâté at £6.05 a kilo in the same 395g size.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition eats around 911 grams a day, assuming about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That works out at £4.99 on the multipack and £5.51 on single tins. That is a little over two tins.