BRIT PATÉ & MEAT - CHICKEN review

What earns this tin its place in our Excellent band is honesty of a simple kind. Two named animals, both declared as meat with organs, plus two pea entries and a named oil, make a list you can take in at a glance. Transparency reads Outstanding, nutritional balance Excellent, value Excellent as well, and protein and processing Good. Holding it back from anything higher is the mineral picture, where the ash reading runs high and the calcium reading runs low for a food that says it suits puppies. Plenty of wet foods reach our Excellent band, the everyday one among them, and this tin keeps that company rather than standing apart from it.

Ingredients, as declared: 48% chicken (meat & organs), 22% beef (meat & organs), 3% pea starch, 1% pea fiber, 0.5% salmon oil.

Chicken at 48% and beef at 22% are both declared as meat and organs, which tells you more than either word would on its own. Between them the animal content takes protein to 36.4% of dry matter. Chicken is the most digestible of the everyday dog food meats and beef the more richly flavoured, and the pairing often revives a dog bored of poultry on its own.

Fat converts to 22.7% of dry matter and the tin runs to 96 kcal per 100g, close to the everyday level for wet food, which makes portioning predictable and steady. Salmon oil at 0.5% brings a little omega 3, and the label names it outright.

The plant side is two entries and no more: pea starch at 3% to hold the paté together and pea fibre at 1% for a little bulk. Estimated carbohydrate lands at 22.7% of dry matter where the typical adult wet food sits at 15.8%, and as with every wet analysis that figure is arrived at by subtraction and not measured directly.

The mineral picture deserves a proper look. Crude ash converts to 15.9% of dry matter, which is high, while calcium comes out at 0.45%, which is lean. For an adult dog in steady condition that pairing is unremarkable and nothing to think twice about. The label also names puppies, though. A growing large breed dog needs its calcium held inside a tighter window than this figure suggests, so that is one conversation worth having with your vet before you settle. Each added vitamin and trace element is printed with its own dose, and carob gum sets the texture.

£3.74 a kilo, in 0.4 kg and 0.8 kg tins.

As a guide, that puts a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition at about £3.28 a day, or roughly 876 grams, taking about 840 kcal a day as the maintenance target (110 × bodyweight^0.75).