Exe Valley Wet Feed: Turkey Sweet Potato & Vegetable review

All three tins land in our Excellent band. The choice comes down to which meat suits your dog, since no one of them is better made than the others. Two features earn that placing: an animal share in the mid sixties on every label, and a carbohydrate estimate far below what wet food usually carries. Protein and processing comes back Excellent across the range, with nutritional balance and transparency both Outstanding, and value Excellent, the same word the tins earn overall. Since the typical adult wet food also sits in our Excellent band, the fairest reading is a range that holds the middle of a strong shelf on all three tins at once.

Ingredients, as declared: Turkey (66%), Rapeseed Oil (2.5%), Dried Sweet Potatoes (1% equivalent to 4% Sweet Potatoes), Dried Carrots (0.5% equivalent to 4% Carrots), Dried Peas (0.3% equivalent to 1% Peas), Broccoli (1%), Dried Herbs (Oregano, Rosemary and Sage) (0.5%), Yeast Cell Wall (a natural source of MOS and Beta Glucans) (0.01%), Dried Seaweed (Ascophyllum Nodosum) (0.006%), Glucosamine (0.004%), Chondroitin Sulphate (0.002%), Yucca Extract (0.002%), Cranberry Extract (0.002%), Yeast Extract (0.001%)

The headline is the same shape on all three tins and it is a strong one: chicken at 65%, lamb at 67% or turkey at 66%, named to the animal and printed with a percentage. Nothing else in any of the three recipes comes from an animal, which is uncommon enough in wet food to be worth saying twice.

The vegetables are declared in dried form with their fresh equivalents alongside. Dried sweet potatoes at 1% are shown as the 4% of fresh sweet potato they began as, and carrots and peas are treated the same way. Broccoli at 1% and a named herb blend of oregano, rosemary and sage at 0.5% finish the plant side of the list.

That leaves very little starch, and the analysis shows it. Carbohydrate is estimated at 7.8% of dry matter in the chicken tin, 5.8% in the turkey and 5.0% in the lamb, all well under the 15.8% the typical adult wet food carries. Protein runs from 40.0% to 44.2% of dry matter and fat from 36.5% to 40.4%, which makes these rich, meat-dense tins by the standards of the wet shelf.

Rapeseed oil is the only added fat. It is a sound everyday oil, low in saturated fat and named properly, with no hiding under oils and fats. Being a plant oil, though, it brings none of the long-chain omega-3s a fish oil would.

Small as it is, the tail of the list is properly declared. A yeast cell wall at 0.01% as a source of MOS, dried seaweed at 0.006%, glucosamine at 0.004% and chondroitin sulphate at 0.002%, then yucca, cranberry and yeast extracts below those. The added panel prints figures for zinc at 24mg, iron at 12.5mg, copper at 2.5mg, manganese at 2mg and iodine at 0.5mg per kilo, with vitamin A and vitamin D3 above them.

Turkey at 66%, and the richest tin of the three, with fat at 10.5% as served and 40.4% of dry matter. At an estimated 131 kcal per 100g this is the range's most energy dense tin, so portions are the smallest, which suits a little dog or one that prefers to eat little and often.

£4.71 a kilo across all three tins, sold as a single 395g tin and in packs of 12.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition would eat about 640 grams a day of the turkey, 656 of the chicken or 844 of the lamb. The assumption is around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That works out at roughly £3.02, £3.09 and £3.98 a day in the same order. The lamb tin declares the most moisture, which is why its serving is the largest.