Cesar Fresh Bowl: Chicken & Poultry in Gravy review

The three bowls share one declared analysis and finish in each other's company. All three reach our Excellent band, level with the midpoint of adult wet food, so the pick is really about which bowl suits your dog. What little separates them comes from the ingredient side, not the nutrition side. Transparency reads Excellent on the chicken and poultry bowl and Good on the other two, while protein and processing reads Excellent on both chicken bowls and Good on the duck. Across all three the analysis is genuinely likeable, with protein converting to 48.8% of dry matter and fat to a lean 14.6%. The estimated carbohydrate at 23.0% of dry matter does run above the 15.8% typical of adult wet food, thanks to the vegetables and the rice.

Ingredients, as declared: Poultry, Red Rice, Green Beans and Pumpkin: Meat and Animal Derivatives* (Chicken Fillet 24% and Chicken Breast 11%), Vegetables* (Fresh Pumpkin 9% and Fresh Green Beans 7%), Cereals* (Red Rice 5%), Derivatives of Vegetable Origin, Oils and Fats, Minerals, Chicken, Sweet Potatoes, Green Beans and Barley: Meat and Animal Derivatives* (Chicken Fillet 24% and Chicken Breast 11%), Vegetables* (Fresh Sweet Potatoes 8% and Fresh Green Beans 7%), Cereals* (Barley 6%), Derivatives of Vegetable Origin, Oils and Fats, Minerals, *Natural ingredients

Chicken fillet at 24% and chicken breast at 11% is an unusually specific declaration for a supermarket wet food, and between them they account for better than a third of every bowl. Both are prime cuts, and they are the part of this label doing the real work.

Those cuts are declared inside a meat and animal derivatives entry, and that is the catch. The named cuts are pinned down, but whatever else shelters under that heading is not, so the bowl cannot be treated as a single-animal recipe even when it reads like one.

The vegetables come with figures attached, which is rare at this end of the shelf. Fresh pumpkin sits at 9%, fresh green beans at 7%, fresh carrots at 9% or 11%, fresh sweet potatoes at 8% and fresh purple potatoes at 5%, depending on the bowl. Pumpkin and green beans bring gentle fibre, carrots bring vitamin A, and sweet potato is one of the better carbohydrate sources a dog bowl can carry.

Grain, where it appears, is named and modest, with red rice at 5% on two bowls and barley at 6% on one. Barley digests easily once cooked and carries useful fibre, though it is a gluten grain if that is something you steer around.

Oils and fats is the one broad heading left standing, and it gives no source, so the added fat could be plant or animal. Beside it the added panel is dosed per kilo, running through vitamin D3, copper, iodine, iron, manganese and zinc, with selenium joining on the chicken and poultry bowl.

Two recipes in a six-pack. One is built on fresh pumpkin at 9% and green beans at 7% with red rice at 5%, the other on fresh sweet potatoes at 8% and green beans at 7% with barley at 6%. It is also the only bowl here whose added panel includes selenium, at 0.3 mg per kilo.

Bowls are 85g, singly or in packs of 6.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition needs around 1063 grams a day, on an assumption of about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That is a dozen bowls and more, which is simply how a light wet food of this weight works out. Plenty of households serve bowls like these as the wet half of a mixed routine. The label's own guide for a 15kg dog is 935 to 1020 grams.