Butchers Healthy Heart Can: With Salmon & Veg review

Our Outstanding band sits above the middle of wet food, where the bulk of the category lands, so the question worth asking is which side of that middle a tin falls on. This one falls above it. Three animals are named with percentages, and the broth carries its own declaration at 42.5%. Protein converts to 38.9% of dry matter, and the estimated carbohydrate stops at 12.8% where the typical adult wet food runs at 15.8%.

Energy is printed on the label rather than left for us to work out, at 84 kcal per 100g, which is rarer on a wet tin than it should be. Nutritional balance comes out Outstanding with protein and processing and transparency both Excellent, which is the profile of a recipe with no soft side rather than one leaning on a single strength.

Ingredients, as declared: British and Irish Farmed Meats (Chicken 30.5%, Salmon 11.5%, Beef 9.5%), Broth 42.5% (Including Water and Dried Seaweed), Broccoli 2%, Butternut Squash 2%, Minerals, Dried Algae Oil 0.12%, Parsley, Chicory Root, Rosehip, Mint.

The meat block is declared as British and Irish farmed meats and then broken open: chicken at 30.5%, the named third animal at 11.5% and beef at 9.5%. Every gram of animal content in the tin is accounted for before anything else appears on the list. Sourcing claims are easy to make and harder to put a number beside, and this label does both.

Broth at 42.5% is the next entry, and declaring it as broth with a percentage is more honest than the more common approach of listing water and moving on. The dried seaweed inside it is a natural source of iodine and a spread of trace minerals, and iodine is separately dosed on the panel at 0.5 mg per kilo.

The heart part of the name rests on two amino acids, both quantified. Taurine at 200 mg per kilo is the one that matters most to heart muscle, and dogs make their own but do not always make plenty. L-carnitine at 100 mg per kilo helps shift fat to where the body burns it. Dried algae oil at 0.12% sits alongside them as a source of long chain omega-3 that does not depend on fish.

Two vegetables at 2% each give the tin its colour and a little fibre. The list tails off through parsley, chicory root, rosehip and mint. Chicory root does a job beyond flavour: its inulin is a prebiotic, and the gut bacteria you want make use of it. At this position on the list, though, all four are small.

The analysis leans meaty: protein at 38.9% of dry matter, fat at 33.3%, ash at 13.9% and estimated carbohydrate at 12.8%. Ash that high is what a recipe with this much animal content and added minerals looks like. Moisture is declared at 82%, so these are wet tins in the fullest sense, and a dog fed on them alone is drinking a good part of their day's water at mealtimes.

Salmon at 11.5% is the fish in this tin, with broccoli and butternut squash at 2% each on the vegetable side. Its additive panel leaves vitamin D3 off and carries copper at 1 mg per kilo, twice what the turkey recipe prints.

Sold as 390g cans, in packs of 6 and 18.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition would eat about 1002 grams a day, a little over two and a half cans. That comes off about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate).