Calibra Verve Adult Cans: Chicken & Duck review

An Excellent banding puts this ahead of the typical adult dry food, which finishes a band back in Good. Value reads Excellent and transparency Outstanding, with Good for protein and processing and for nutritional balance. The evenness is the story: strong animal content, restrained carbohydrate and a fully dosed additive list, with no weak corner dragging the rest down.

Ingredients, as declared: fresh deboned chicken (30 %), duck protein (26 %), potatoes (12 %), poultry fat, hydrolysed poultry protein (6 %), pumpkin (4 %), peas (4 %), apple pulp dried (2 %), yeasts, hydrolysed chicken liver (2 %), salmon oil (2 %), chicory root powder (0.2 %), rosehips dried (0.2 %), pineapple dried (0.1 %), prebiotics (mannan-oligosaccharides 150 mg/kg, β-glucans 120 mg/kg, fructo-oligosaccharides 100 mg/kg), glucosamine (260 mg/kg), chondroitine sulphate (160 mg/kg), Mojave yucca (100 mg/kg).

Fresh deboned chicken at 30% and duck protein at 26% split the animal side between a fresh ingredient and a concentrated dried one. That pairing is sensible: the dried share keeps its weight once the oven has taken the water out of the fresh meat. Protein converts to 33.3% of dry matter and estimated carbohydrate to 36.2%, well under the 46.2% typical of adult dry food.

No grain appears on the list at all. Potatoes at 12% and pumpkin at 4% carry the starch, with peas at 4% behind them. Dried apple pulp, rosehips, pineapple and chicory root sit at trace levels, the last of them a mild natural prebiotic in its own right.

Hydrolysed poultry protein at 6% and hydrolysed chicken liver at 2% are flavour engineering, broken-down proteins that dogs find very hard to resist. The poultry one names no species, a small transparency niggle on an otherwise well-declared recipe.

Salmon oil at 2% is where the marine omega 3s come from. The additive table is unusually complete: a full B-vitamin suite, vitamin C at 250 mg/kg, and trace minerals in organic chelated forms with zinc at 90 mg/kg leading. Glucosamine at 260 mg/kg and chondroitin sulphate at 160 mg/kg add the joint pair.

£5.07 a kilo, sold in 100g, 2kg and 12kg sizes.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition needs about 219 grams a day, assuming around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That works out at £1.11 a day. The label's own table asks 170 grams at that weight, so split the difference and watch the waistline.