Butchers Tripe Mix (blue label) review

This can reaches our Excellent band, and it does so with nutritional balance and transparency both reading Outstanding and protein and processing reading Good. The meat line explains most of that. The two named animals are each printed in parts, and everything behind them amounts to a fat, a fibre, a supplement mix and two small prebiotics.

The typical adult wet food arrives in the same band. That is a comment on how well the format does on our scoring, and no criticism of this tin. Protein converts to 42.5% of dry matter and fat to 30.0%, a genuinely rich analysis, and the estimated carbohydrate settles at 16.5% of dry matter, close to the 15.8% the category usually runs.

Ingredients, as declared: British and Irish Farmed Beef 42% (Tripe & Tripe Broth 39%, Liver 3%), British and Irish Farmed Chicken 41.5%, Salmon Oil, Plant Fibres, Vitamins and Minerals, Chicory Root, MOS.

Tripe is stomach lining from a grazing animal, and it earns its place twice over. It is nutritious, carrying protein and fat in quantity, and it is close to irresistible for most dogs. On this label it is declared at 39% with its own broth included, which is the difference between tripe as an ingredient and tripe as a word on the front of a can.

Liver at 3% is the other organ meat here, and a little goes a long way. It is one of the densest natural sources of the trace nutrients a dog needs, which is why so many recipes tuck a small amount in behind the muscle meat. Chicken at 41.5% balances the red meat with something lighter.

After the meat, the list runs out quickly. Salmon oil appears without a percentage, so read it as a helpful addition and not a measured dose. Plant fibres are left unnamed. Inulin comes in with the chicory root, a soluble fibre that feeds gut bacteria, and MOS does a similar job from a yeast source, both sitting at the trace end.

Energy comes in at 98 kcal per 100g. The vitamin and mineral panel is printed with doses: vitamin A at 1250 I.U. per kilo, vitamin D3 at 250 I.U. and vitamin E at 13mg, with zinc at 20mg, manganese at 2.5mg and iodine at 0.5mg. No calcium figure accompanies them, so the ash reading of 10.0% of dry matter is the only guide to overall mineral load.

400g cans, sold on their own or 6 and 18 to a pack.

For a 15kg adult dog in steady condition the guide amount is around 857 grams a day, a bit over two cans, based on a maintenance figure of about 840 kcal (110 × bodyweight^0.75). The can's own chart puts a dog of 10 to 20 kg on 600 to 1000 grams a day, so the two land in much the same place.