Bound Pate: Fish with Courgette & Sweet Potatoes review

Placement across this range is tight. The beef, the boar and the duck all read in our Outstanding band, while the chicken and the fish sit a step behind in Excellent, which is where the typical adult wet food lands too. So the range as a whole rests at or above the middle of its category, which is exactly what the ingredients would lead you to expect, since they are named all the way down. Nutritional balance and transparency read Outstanding on every recipe, and protein and processing reads Outstanding on the beef and the boar with Excellent on the other three. Value is Outstanding on the beef, the boar and the duck and Excellent on the chicken and the fish, so the profile barely shifts from can to can. The analysis says the same. Protein converts to 45.0% of dry matter throughout, estimated carbohydrate runs between 9.0% and 12.5% against the 15.8% typical of adult wet food, and declared animal content holds at 55%. On quality the five are interchangeable, so pick the one whose protein suits your dog.

Ingredients, as declared: White fish 25%, salmon 25%, fish skin 5%, zucchini 6%, sweet potato 3%, carrots 2%, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, red currants 2%, rosemary, sage, juniper, oregano, thyme, marjoram, basil, parsley 0.1%, algae, salmon oil

Every recipe opens with named meat and keeps naming things right to the end. The mixed meat recipes run a headline animal at 30% with chicken at 25% behind it. The poultry recipe goes to 45% chicken with liver and hearts at 5% each, and the fish recipe splits white fish and salmon at 25% apiece with fish skin at 5%. However the split falls, the animal total comes to 55%.

Organ meat turns up where it does the most good. The poultry can carries chicken liver and chicken hearts, and the fish one carries fish skin, all nutrient dense parts that many pates leave out altogether. For B vitamins and copper, liver is one of the richest things you can put in a bowl.

The plant side is deliberately light. Depending on the recipe you get pumpkin, potato, quinoa, carrot, courgette, sweet potato, apple, plus a berry mix, all in small printed amounts. Estimated carbohydrate confirms how modest that is, running between 9.0% and 12.5% of dry matter where the typical adult wet food sits at 15.8%.

Then comes the herb garden: rosemary, sage, juniper, oregano, thyme, marjoram, basil and parsley, all at trace level. You would not buy this food for the herbs. Rosemary still earns its place twice over, since its extract is a capable natural antioxidant for keeping the fats fresh.

Algae and salmon oil close each list. Both are recognised sources of the long chain omega-3 that plant oils cannot supply. Neither has a printed dose. Read them as a garnish on a recipe that is already meat led. The added panel behind them is dosed line by line, with vitamin D3 at 200 UI and vitamin E at 150 mg per kilo. Iron is at 25 mg and zinc at 15 mg, and manganese, copper, iodine and selenium are each printed as well.

White fish and salmon at 25% each with fish skin at 5%, then courgette at 6%, sweet potato at 3% and carrots at 2%. This is the only can with no land animal in it, and the leanest of the range at 5.0% fat as fed, or 25.0% of dry matter. No species is named for the white fish.

£7.62 a kilo. One can size, 400 g, sold on its own and in packs of 6, 12, 18, 24 and 36.

For a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition, and taking maintenance as about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard estimate), that is roughly 800 grams a day and about £6.10. Two cans covers it.