Butchers Recovery & Revive Foil review

This tray takes an Excellent placing. It shares that band with the tin it mirrors while being built a little differently: more white rice, less broth, protein converting to 37.5% of dry matter and fat close behind at 35.0%. The estimated carbohydrate of 14.0% still lands just under the 15.8% a typical adult wet food carries.

The wet shelf is a strong field whose middle also falls in our Excellent band, and this tray sits comfortably inside it. Naming the chicken at 51% and giving the broth a percentage instead of burying it as water is what does most of the lifting.

Ingredients, as declared: British and Irish Farmed Chicken 51%, Broth 33.5% (Including Water and Dried Seaweed), Cooked White Rice 12.5, Salmon Oil 1%, Minerals, Yeast 0.15% (Prebiotic MOS 0.05%, Beta-Glucans 0.045%), Chicory Root; Prebiotic FOS 0.05%, Yucca 0.005%, Paraprobiotic Lactobacillus Helveticus 0.001%.

Chicken at 51% is the one animal here, farmed in Britain and Ireland by the label's account. The plain name on the list marks it as fresh meat. For a tray sold to tempt a dog back into eating, a fresh, highly palatable meat at that share is the right first ingredient.

Broth at 33.5% is water carrying dried seaweed, and it comes with its own percentage. Most trays do not go that far. What the label will not tell you is how the 33.5% divides between the water and the seaweed, and seaweed is worth knowing about in quantity since it is a concentrated iodine source.

Cooked white rice at 12.5% is a bigger share than the tin version carries, and it is what makes this the starchier of the two. White rice is low in fibre and quickly broken down, and gentle recipes reach for it constantly. The estimated carbohydrate of 2.8% as fed, or 14.0% of dry matter, is a by-difference figure worked out from the declared analysis, and the maker prints no number of its own.

The gut cluster is dosed and printed: yeast at 0.15% carrying MOS at 0.05% and beta-glucans at 0.045%, chicory root with FOS at 0.05%, then yucca at 0.005% and a paraprobiotic at 0.001%. MOS and FOS are prebiotics that feed the bacteria already at work in the large intestine. Trace amounts they are, but the label names and measures each of them.

Marine omega oils come in with the salmon oil at 1%, and fish comes with them. The added panel is fuller than the brand's everyday trays, with vitamin C at 30 mg and vitamin E at 63 mg. Vitamin A, vitamin D3, manganese, zinc, copper and iodine follow, each printed with its dose.

Sold in packs of 4 x 150g trays.

Feeding a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition comes to about 902 grams a day, taken from an energy estimate of 840 kcal (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance calculation). That works out at six trays. The label's own guide is lighter, putting a dog between 10 and 25kg at 562.5 to 975 grams a day.