Ci Foods Ci Top Drawer Adult Grain Free: Chicken, Veg & Sweet Potato review

All three trays finish in our Excellent band, with the turkey a shade ahead of its two stablemates. Wet food scores strongly with us and the typical adult wet food is itself an Excellent band food, so all three are finishing about where a well built wet tray should.

The salmon comes up shorter on two counts, both of them on the label. More of it converts to carbohydrate, at an estimated 22.2% of dry matter against 14.0% on the chicken tray and 15.8% for the typical adult wet food. Protein comes in at 35.2% of dry matter, the lowest of the three. For a fish loving dog it is still a good dinner, and the fish share itself is the highest animal content in the range.

Ingredients, as declared: Chicken (60%), Dried Peas (1.3% equivalent to 4% Peas), Dried Sweet Potato (1.3% equivalent to 4% Sweet Potato), Dried Carrots (1.3% equivalent to 10% Carrots), Dried Basil, Dried Parsley, Dried Sage, Dried Mint, Dried Rosemary, Fish Oil, Vegetable Oil, Fructo-oligosaccharies (Prebiotic FOS; 0.1%), Yeast (as a source of Prebiotic MOS; 0.1%), Minerals, High Nucleotide Yeast Extract (0.015%), Seaweed Meal, Glucosamine (0.004%), Chondroitin Sulphate (0.002%), Cranberry (0.002%), Yucca Schidigera (0.002%).

The chicken and turkey trays are one recipe with the bird changed. Named meat at 60% opens the list, then dried peas, dried sweet potato and dried carrots at 1.3% each. All three are declared with the fresh weight they represent, 4% peas, 4% sweet potato and 10% carrots. That is a genuinely small plant load for a complete food, and it shows in the analysis.

The salmon tray is built on a different plan. Salmon at 40% and white fish at 26% make up the animal side, and sweet potato at 4% is the only starch of any size. The supporting ingredients are given in milligrams per kilogram. That is unusual on a wet label and rather more precise than most.

A hedgerow of dried herbs runs through the poultry trays: basil, parsley, sage, mint and rosemary. Rosemary is the working one there, a natural antioxidant to keep the fats fresh. The salmon tray condenses all of that into mixed herbs at 0.5%.

The oils tell you something about how carefully each label is written. Fish oil sits on the poultry trays alongside vegetable oil, a general term that could be any plant, while the salmon tray names sunflower oil at 0.1%. Prebiotics follow, FOS and yeast derived MOS at 0.1% each on the poultry and MOS at 111 mg per kilogram on the salmon. High nucleotide yeast extract, seaweed meal, cranberry and yucca close all three lists at trace level.

Every added vitamin and trace element is dosed in print, though the panels are not the same across the range. The poultry trays run vitamin A at 2500 IU, vitamin D3 at 200 IU and vitamin E at 25 mg per kilogram with zinc, iron, manganese, copper, iodine and selenium behind them. The salmon tray prints its own set and names the mineral salts themselves rather than the element in each. Calcium is not declared on any of the three.

Chicken at 60% with peas, sweet potato and carrots behind it. This is the leanest and highest protein tray of the three: on a dry matter basis, protein 46.0% and fat 22.0%. It is also the only one whose nutritional balance pillar reads Outstanding. Energy is estimated at 99 kcal per 100g, so portions are the largest in the range.

£6.58 a kilo across all three recipes, sold in a 395g tray.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition needs about 840 kcal a day, using the standard maintenance estimate (110 × bodyweight^0.75). That works out at 683 to 847 grams a day depending on the tray, or £4.49 to £5.57.