Butchers Simply Gentle Foil: With Turkey & Rice review

All three trays come out level with one another in our Excellent band. Wet foods score strongly with us as a group, and the middle of that group falls in the same band. These sit in the thick of a good field rather than standing apart from it.

What puts them there is straightforward. Protein converts to 44.4% of dry matter, the estimated carbohydrate of 12.8% lands under the 15.8% a typical adult wet food carries, and every animal on the list comes with a number beside it. At 90 kcal per 100g the trays are a little more energy dense than many wet foods, which keeps daily portions sensible.

Ingredients, as declared: British and Irish Farmed Meat (Chicken 28%, Beef 13.5%, Turkey 11.5%), Broth 39.5% (Including Water and Dried Seaweed), Cooked Wholegrain Rice 6%, Salmon Oil 0.3%, Minerals, Chicory Root (Prebiotic FOS 0.06%), Yeast (Prebiotic MOS 0.05%), Parsley, Rosehip, Mint.

Every animal gets its own share, and the label calls the meat British and Irish farmed. Chicken leads every tray, at 38.5% in the chicken recipe and 26% or 28% in the other two once salmon or turkey is added, and beef holds steady at 13.5% throughout. That last point is the one to hold on to: the tray named for fish or for turkey still has beef and chicken in it.

Broth at 39.5% is the second entry on every label, water with dried seaweed in it. Naming the liquid and giving it a percentage is better practice than letting it disappear into the gap between ingredients, and the seaweed brings a wide mineral spread with it, iodine included.

No other cereal appears, just cooked wholegrain rice at 6%, and that is why the trays are not grain free. Wholegrain keeps more of the fibre than white rice does, which suits a recipe built for steady digestion. The maker does not print a carbohydrate figure, so 12.8% of dry matter is our estimate by difference from the declared analysis. On this label it lands below the wet average anyway.

Two prebiotics finish the working part of the list, FOS at 0.06% carried in the chicory root and MOS at 0.05% carried in the yeast. Both are there to feed the bacteria already at work in the gut, and both are printed with doses. Salmon oil at 0.3% is a light touch of the marine omega oils, enough to put fish on the label without being a working dose of anything.

Parsley, rosehip and mint sit at the end at trace level. The printed additive panels are not quite the same across the range. The salmon tray lists copper at 1 mg, while the chicken and turkey trays list copper at 0.5 mg with vitamin D3 at 125 I.U. Vitamin A at 1,250 I.U., vitamin E at 13 mg, zinc at 20 mg and manganese at 2.5 mg are common to all of them.

Turkey at 11.5% behind chicken at 28% and beef at 13.5%. Of the two poultry meats turkey is the leaner one, and this tray suits a dog who has had enough of chicken on the front of the pack.

The trays are 150g, sold in packs of 12 and 24, and work out at £3.61 a kilo.

A 15kg adult dog in moderate condition needs about 840 kcal a day, using 110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance calculation. That is about 933 grams, or £3.37 a day, a little over six trays. The label's own guide starts a 10kg dog at 750 grams a day.