Bound Ragu: Chicken with Pumpkin & Apple review

All four cans reach our Excellent band, and they get there by the plainest route available. A named meat at 65% with bone broth behind it leaves very little room for anything else. Protein converts to 50.0% of dry matter on the beef, 55.0% across the other three cans, and estimated carbohydrate sits at 5.0% to 7.5% where a typical adult wet food runs at 15.8%. That typical wet food occupies the same Excellent band, since wet is a strong category on our scoring, so this range is keeping company with the best of a strong format. The four read alike on our pillars, with protein and processing Excellent on every can, nutritional balance and transparency Outstanding, and value Excellent with them.

Ingredients, as declared: Chicken 65%, bone broth 26%, pumpkin 5%, apple 2%, rosemary, sage, juniper, oregano, thyme, marjoram, basil, parsley 0.1%, salmon oil.

Each can opens the same way. The named meat comes first at 65%, then bone broth at 25%, or 26% in the chicken. Bone broth is a real ingredient, not plain water. Printing a percentage for it is more than most wet labels bother to do, and it means the liquid in the can is accounted for.

Two plants follow, and that is the whole of the bulk. The beef gets carrots and peas, the boar potatoes and a berry mix. The chicken has pumpkin and apple, the pork peas and sweet potatoes. None of them passes 6%, and the estimated carbohydrate confirms how little starch is doing here, sitting between 5.0% and 7.5% of dry matter.

A herb tail closes the list: rosemary, sage, juniper, oregano, thyme, marjoram, basil and parsley. All of it is trace level seasoning. Rosemary is the one with a job beyond flavour, since rosemary extract is a capable natural antioxidant and helps keep the fats in the can fresh.

Salmon oil closes every recipe. It is the marine source of the long chain omega-3 that a plant oil cannot supply. No dose is printed beside it. Take it as a helpful finishing touch. The added panel behind it carries figures throughout, with vitamin D3 at 200 UI, vitamin E at 150 mg, iron at 25 mg and zinc at 15 mg per kilo. Manganese, copper, iodine and selenium are printed too.

Energy here is a declared figure, not our estimate, at 105 kcal per 100g against the 97 typical of adult wet food. Portions run a little smaller than the category average, and the protein in them runs a good deal higher.

Chicken at 65% with bone broth at 26%, the largest broth share in the range, then pumpkin at 5% and apple at 2%. Chicken is the meat most dogs already know, so this is the easy starting point for a fussy eater trying the range.

£8.25 a kilo, in a single 400 g can, sold on its own or in packs of 6, 12, 18, 24 and 36.

A 15kg adult dog in moderate condition needs about 840 kcal a day on the standard maintenance estimate (110 × bodyweight^0.75), which here means roughly 800 grams, or two cans, and about £6.60.