Edgard & Cooper Puppy Tins review

The middle of the wet puppy field already reaches our Excellent band, which tells you how strong the field is. This tin clears that middle comfortably and stays in the same band, which is the harder of the two things to do.

Nutritional balance is where it does its best work and reads Outstanding, with transparency Outstanding beside it and protein and processing and value both Excellent. The analysis is the reason. Half the dry matter is protein, carbohydrate is down at a tenth of it, and the energy figure lets a growing pup get what it needs from a sensible portion.

Ingredients, as declared: chicken 50%, duck 10%, pumpkin 2%, peas 2%, minerals, carrot 0.5%, salmon oil, mannan-oligosaccharides (MOS), fructo-oligosaccharides (FOS), broccoli (dried) 0.13%, banana (dried) 0.05%, strawberry (dried) 0.05%, glucosamine, chondroitin sulphate, dried fennel 0.01%, dried caraway 0.01%, dried yarrow 0.01%, dried blackberry leaves 0.01%, dried mistle 0.01%, dried chamomile blossoms 0.01%, dried gentianroot 0.01%, dried centaury 0.01%

Chicken at 50% and duck at 10% do nearly all the work, and both are declared as meat under their own names rather than gathered into a category. Of the everyday meats, chicken tends to be the easiest on a young digestion and the one most puppies take to. The duck behind it adds a slightly richer note that fussier puppies appreciate.

The starch is almost an afterthought. Pumpkin and peas at 2% each, with dried carrot at 0.5%, are the only things in the tin doing that job. Carbohydrate converts to just 10.0% of dry matter where the typical wet puppy food sits at 13.6%. At this level the peas are there for nutrition, not for bulk, and pumpkin is gentle on a young gut.

Salmon oil is there for the marine omegas that a young brain and coat need. No percentage is given for it. It is the reason the allergen picture lists fish, even with no fish meat in the tin, and that only counts on a strict exclusion diet.

The functional tail is a thoughtful one. Mannan oligosaccharides and fructo oligosaccharides are both prebiotics, and what they feed is the bacteria colonising the large intestine. Glucosamine with chondroitin sulphate gives joints an early nudge. None of the four carries a dose, so you can see the intent without being able to weigh it. After that comes the garden: dried broccoli at 0.13%, banana and strawberry at 0.05% each, then fennel, caraway, yarrow, blackberry leaves, mistle, chamomile, gentian root and centaury at 0.01% apiece. That is seasoning by any measure.

The declared analysis backs the front of the tin up. Protein at 12.0% converts to 50.0% of dry matter and fat at 7.0% to 29.2%. Those are the numbers of a recipe made mostly of meat. Ash converts to 8.3%, a moderate mineral load for a wet food. The added panel prints vitamin D3 at 140 IU, vitamin E at 30 mg, zinc at 20 mg, copper at 2.3 mg, manganese at 2 mg and iodine at 0.5 mg. No calcium figure appears anywhere, and no technological additives are used at all, with a plain slash printed on the site where preservatives and colourings would sit.

£7.33 a kilo. Tins are 400 g and come singly or in packs of six.

There is no settled daily amount for a puppy, so read the guide against your pup's age and the adult weight you are expecting, then adjust as they fill out.