Europa Grain Free Adult Trays: Chicken review

The two trays part company here. The chicken recipe reaches our Excellent band, helped by the stronger analysis of the pair and an additive panel printed in full, with protein and processing reading Excellent and nutritional balance Outstanding. The salmon and white fish tray settles into our Good band instead. Moisture is declared at 80.0% against 75.0% on the chicken, and fat is lower here too. Once the water is accounted for there is simply less food in the tray. The difference is in construction, not in honesty. A Good placing here still describes a straightforward, meat-first tray that a fish-fed dog will thrive on, and adult wet food sits high with us as a category.

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-oligosaccharides (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%)

Both trays open on the same figure, 60% animal content, but they reach it differently. The chicken tray uses chicken alone. The fish tray splits its share down the middle, 30% salmon and 30% white fish. In both cases the meat heads the list with a percentage beside it. For a buyer, no single thing a wet label does is more useful.

The vegetables are declared twice over, as their dried weight and as the fresh weight they came from, so dried carrots at 1.3% are shown as the 10% of fresh carrots that went in. It is an honest way to write a label and it makes the recipe much easier to picture. The chicken tray carries dried peas, sweet potato and carrots between them; the fish tray keeps only the sweet potato.

Both recipes run the same five named herbs: basil, parsley, sage, mint and rosemary. Naming each one is more than most labels bother to do. Fish oil and vegetable oil follow. The fish oil is a real source of marine fat. Vegetable oil is a general term that could cover almost any plant oil, and that is the one place these otherwise careful labels stop short.

The prebiotic pair is fructo-oligosaccharides with a yeast source of MOS, each declared at 0.1%, and behind them sit a high nucleotide yeast extract at 0.015% and seaweed meal. Glucosamine at 0.004% and chondroitin sulphate at 0.002% close the list. Those are small numbers, so the joint pair reads as a considerate addition to a good dinner and not as anything a vet would call a dose.

Once the water comes out the two recipes read quite differently. On a dry matter basis the chicken tray reads 46.0% protein and 22.0% fat, with carbohydrate estimated at 14.0% against 15.8% for the typical adult wet food. The fish tray is higher still on protein at 50.0%, with fat at 22.5% and carbohydrate at 17.5%. It declares the most moisture in the range, so there is less of everything in the tray as it is served.

Neither label declares its calcium, and the calorie figures on both are our own estimates rather than the maker's, at 99 kcal per 100g for the chicken tray and 86 for the fish.

Chicken at 60%, with dried peas behind it, then dried sweet potato and dried carrots, each shown at both its dried weight and its fresh equivalent. It is the stronger of the two as served, at 11.5% protein and 5.5% fat, and it is the only tray whose additive panel includes vitamin D3 and selenium. This is the recipe that reaches our Excellent band.

£4.18 a kilo on both recipes, in a single 395g tray size.

As a guide, assume a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition needing around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That is about 847 grams a day of the chicken tray, or £3.54, and about 982 grams of the fish tray, or £4.11. The fish tray carries fewer calories per gram, which is why its portion is the larger of the two.