Essential Foods Essential Older Pate review

Our Excellent band covers this one, and the reason is the meat: four animal entries with printed percentages and very little competing with them for room in the tin. Wet food as a category tends to earn an Excellent band word from us too, so read this as a confident placing inside a strong field rather than a lone high mark. Protein and processing reads Excellent and value does the same, with nutritional balance and transparency both reading Outstanding, a set led firmly by the meat and the label.

Ingredients, as declared: Duck meat (26%), chicken meat (18%), chicken hearts (12%), chicken gizzards (9%), apples (2%), pea flour (2%), salmon oil (1%), cranberry (1%), blueberry (1%), goji berry (1%), blackberry (1%), lignocellulose, calcium carbonate, kelp (0.2%), green tea (0.2%), marigold (0.2%), ginger (0.2%), spirulina (0.2%).

Duck meat at 26% heads the list, then chicken meat at 18%, chicken hearts at 12% and chicken gizzards at 9%, bringing the declared animal content to 65% of the tin. Hearts and gizzards are hard-working muscle rather than trimmings, and they are a large part of why protein converts to 43.2% of dry matter.

Fat sits at 31.8% of dry matter, moderate for a recipe this meat-heavy, and the label declares 110 kcal per 100g where the typical adult wet food runs at 97. For a dog who has slowed down but still likes a full bowl, that pairing of dense protein and restrained energy is a sensible place to be.

Estimated carbohydrate lands at 10.9% of dry matter against 15.8% for the typical adult wet food, and the only real plant carriers are apples and pea flour, at 2% each. Then come the four berries at 1% apiece, and lignocellulose behind them, a milled plant fibre that thickens the pate and contributes almost no calories of its own.

Salmon oil at one per cent is the single ingredient from outside the poultry yard, and it is there for its marine oils, not for energy. It is a small inclusion, but it is enough to matter if you are keeping fish off the menu altogether.

Every entry in the added panel is printed with a figure: zinc at 12.5mg, iron at 10mg, manganese at 3mg and iodine at 0.8mg per kilo, with vitamin A and vitamin D3 above them. Calcium carbonate brings calcium to 0.91% of dry matter, comfortable for a mature dog. Closing the tin at 0.2% each are ginger, kelp, green tea, spirulina and marigold.

£9.37 a kilo, in 400 g tins sold singly or six to a pack.

For a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition our estimate is about 764 grams a day, or £7.16, working from a maintenance requirement near 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard estimate). The label's own chart puts a 15kg dog on 675 grams.