BRIT MONO PROTEIN – TURKEY review

This can settles in our Excellent band. The label is about as clean as wet food labels get: one animal and two plant lines, with nothing hiding behind a category term. Transparency reads Outstanding, value Excellent, and protein and processing Good. Because a well made wet food usually reads well on our scoring, the Excellent band keeps a lot of company, and this can takes its place among that company without pulling far ahead.

Ingredients, as declared: 74 % turkey (meat and organs), 3 % pea starch, 1 % pea fiber.

Turkey at 74% is all of the animal content. The label declares it as meat and organs. That tells you more than the word turkey on its own would. Organ meat brings a natural density of vitamins and minerals that muscle meat does not carry, and turkey itself is easy on the digestion. Protein converts to 40.9% of dry matter, which is a genuinely meat led reading.

Fat is the figure to look at twice. It converts to 45.5% of dry matter, so this is a rich can, and at 126 kcal per 100g it carries more energy per gram than most wet food does. For a working dog, a fussy eater or one that struggles to hold condition, that is a feature worth paying attention to. For a settled adult dozing on the sofa most of the day, it simply means keeping the portions honest.

The plant side barely exists. Pea starch at 3% binds the can together and pea fibre at 1% gives it a little bulk. Between them they leave the estimated carbohydrate at 2.2% of dry matter against 15.8% for the typical adult wet food. That is an unusually low reading and a real point in this recipe's favour.

The added panel is dosed in print, covering vitamins D3 and E, zinc, iron, manganese, iodine, copper and biotin, with carob gum as the only technological addition. Calcium converts to 0.91% of dry matter, a sensible level for adult maintenance.

£4.47 a kilo, sold in a 0.4 kg can.

As a guide, feeding a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition works out at about £2.98 a day, or roughly 667 grams, taking maintenance as about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75). Because this can is energy dense for a wet food, that daily weight is smaller than most wet portions.