Cesar Classic Terrine Trays in Jelly: Lamb & Chicken in Jelly review

All six trays land in our Average band, and the reason is legibility rather than composition. Transparency reads Good across the six and protein and processing no better than Good, because a label written in category terms gives a scoring system very little to name. The typical adult wet food sits in our Excellent band, so the distance here is real and we are not going to pretend otherwise.

What the numbers do show is worth saying plainly. Nutritional balance reads Outstanding across the range, and protein converts to between 47.5% and 53.9% of dry matter. The carbohydrate estimate stays under the wet-food norm throughout, so the cereals are not doing anything like the work they do in some other big-brand recipes. None of this is a safety verdict. Cesar has fed small dogs for decades and these trays are made to a consistent standard; what you cannot do is read the recipe, because the recipe is not on offer.

Ingredients, as declared: Meat and Animal derivatives (in the Chunk*92%, including Lamb 14%, Chicken 4%), Cereals, Minerals, Derivatives of Vegetable origin, *95% Natural, Chunk typically 50% of the product

The working list is short and most of it is legal category language. At 60% to 63% depending on the tray, meat and animal derivatives is a term covering any warm-blooded land animal, any part of it, in any proportion. Cereals can mean any grain. Derivatives of vegetable origin can mean almost anything grown. Any of those can change between one batch and the next while the printed label stays exactly the same. That style of writing is common across big-brand wet food, and nothing about it is untoward.

The fixed points are the named animals. One species is declared at 14% of the tray and a second, where the recipe has one, at 4%, and that pairing is what distinguishes a chicken tray from a beef one. Most labels also say that 95% or more of the meat portion is natural. That is a claim about processing, not about species.

Only the analysis gives you something solid to hold on to. Protein converts to between 47.5% and 53.9% of dry matter and fat to between 25.0% and 29.4%, a moderate and digestible balance. The estimated carbohydrate runs from 4.1% to 13.5% of dry matter against the 15.8% typical for adult wet food. Nobody measured those carbohydrate figures. They come out of the difference, and on wet food that method tends to read high, so the true share is likely lower still.

Every entry in the short added panel carries a figure. Vitamin D3 is at 250 IU per kilo, vitamin E at 14 mg, zinc at 18.1 mg, iron at 3.6 mg, manganese at 2.2 mg, copper at 1.7 mg and iodine at 0.28 mg. The lamb tray runs slightly different doses of its own. Cassia gum is the technological additive that gives the jelly its set, declared at 2100 mg per kilo on most of the trays.

Taken as a whole, this is a competently made, moderate wet food sold by one of the best known names on the shelf. Buy it knowing that you are trusting the maker's reputation, because reading the recipe is the one thing this label will not let you do.

Lamb at 14% and chicken at 4%, and the only label to describe its chunk separately, typically half the tray and declared 95% natural. Protein converts to 53.9% of dry matter, the highest reading in the range, and the additive doses are pitched slightly differently from the rest.

The range is £7.87 a kilo. Trays are 150g and 300g, sold singly or in packs of 4, 8 and 24.

A 15kg adult dog in moderate condition works through roughly 913 to 1063 grams a day, which comes to between £7.19 and £8.37, taking maintenance as about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75). Wet food carries few calories per gram, so those daily amounts look large next to a dry food and many owners serve trays alongside one.