Europa Adult Trays: Chicken, Brown Rice & Vegetables review

Excellent is the band this tray earns, level with the middle of a wet shelf that scores well with us as a whole. Our pillars read Excellent for protein and processing, nutritional balance and value, with transparency Outstanding. The chicken at the front of the list does exactly what a wet food's headline meat should.

Ingredients, as declared: Chicken (60%), Rice (5%), Peas (2%), Carrots (2%), Salmon Oil, Seaweed, Herbs, Glucosamine, Chondroitin, Yucca Extract, Cranberry Extract, Yeast Extract, Vitamins and Minerals

Chicken at 60% accounts for every animal ingredient in the tray, and the label calls it chicken, not poultry and not meat derivatives. Protein converts to 36.4% of dry matter and fat to 25.5%, a moderate and unfussy analysis that suits a dog who does not want a heavy dinner.

The plant side is where this tray parts company with a meat-only wet food. Rice at 5%, peas at 2% and carrots at 2% are all named and all modest on the label. Estimated carbohydrate still converts to 26.1% of dry matter against 15.8% for the typical adult wet food. Part of that is the estimate itself. It runs high on wet recipes because it works by subtraction. The other part is that this is built as a chicken and rice dinner, not as a block of meat.

After the vegetables the list changes character. Salmon oil, seaweed, herbs, glucosamine, chondroitin, yucca, cranberry and yeast extract all arrive without a percentage or a dose, and so does the vitamin and mineral mix. Seaweed is a genuine mineral source and salmon oil a genuine source of marine fat, so the intent behind them is sound. With no figures printed, their contribution has to be taken on the maker's word.

Herbs is a category term. It can cover a wide range of plants, and the blend can be swapped about batch by batch with the label untouched. On a tray this straightforward it is a small thing, though it is the sort of entry that stops a label short of being fully open.

Energy is our own estimate here at 120 kcal per 100g, since the label does not declare it, and calcium is not declared either, so there is no figure to report for it. Neither absence is unusual on a wet tray, and neither says anything about what is in the food.

£4.05 a kilo, in a single 395g tray.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition would eat about 702 grams a day, or £2.84, assuming around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). There is no feeding chart on the label to compare that against, so the figure comes from the energy estimate alone.