Butchers Joints & Coat Foil: With Chicken review

Every tray in the range comes out in our Outstanding band. The middle of the wet category reads Excellent, a strong field in itself, and these sit comfortably clear of it. The numbers behind that are straightforward. Protein converts to 44.4% of dry matter, estimated carbohydrate runs between 7.3% and 10.1% against 15.8% for the typical adult wet food, and no recipe carries cereal to push it higher.

The other half of it is what the label chooses to show. Three animals across the range are named with percentages, and the broth is quantified at 43%. The energy is printed at 89 kcal per 100g, and the joint ingredients carry figures down to the last thousandth of a percent. On our pillars, nutritional balance reads Outstanding, with protein and processing and transparency both Excellent.

Ingredients, as declared: British and Irish Farmed Meats (Chicken 40.5%, Beef 13.5%), Broth 43% (Including Water and Dried Seaweed), Salmon Oil 1%, Minerals, Dried Algae Oil 0.12%, Green Lipped Mussel 0.07%, Parsley, Glucosamine 0.015%, Chicory Root, Rosehip, Mint, Chondroitin 0.007%.

British and Irish farmed meats lead every tray, and each one is itemised, with chicken at 40.5% in the chicken recipe and beef at 13.5% behind it. When a third animal joins in the other two recipes, it is the chicken share that gives way, so the total animal content holds steady across the range.

Broth at 43% comes next, declared as an ingredient with a number beside it, and the dried seaweed within it brings iodine and sea minerals. Between the broth and the meat's own moisture, the trays are declared at 82% water.

Glucosamine and chondroitin are the two names most owners recognise on a joint label, and both are components of cartilage. Green lipped mussel sits with them as a whole food source of the same compounds plus its own omega-3. All three are printed with figures, which is more candour than the category usually offers, and those figures are the small inclusions a complete food carries rather than the levels a supplement is built around. If your vet has set a dose, keep to it; this tray is the dinner underneath.

For skin and coat the tray is better stocked. Salmon oil at 1% is a genuine helping of long chain omega-3, with dried algae oil at 0.12% adding a plant sourced share. The panel prints biotin at 0.05 mg per kilo, with zinc supplied from two compounds. Coat condition answers to fats and zinc more readily than to anything else in a bowl.

At trace level the list closes with parsley, chicory root, rosehip and mint. The chicory root brings prebiotic inulin along with its flavour. On the analysis, protein reads 44.4% of dry matter and fat 33.3%, with fibre at 1.1%, a profile that says meat and broth and very little filler.

Chicken at 40.5% over beef at 13.5%, the only two animal recipe in the range and the leanest of the three on the plant side. Estimated carbohydrate stops at 7.3% of dry matter, with ash at 13.9%. Vitamin D3 is printed at 125 I.U. per kilo.

Trays are 150g, sold in packs of 12 and 24.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition would need about 948 grams a day, a little over six trays. The basis for that is about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate).