Harringtons Grain Free Wet Adult Trays: Salmon & Potato With Vegetables review

The Turkey tray leads the range in our Outstanding band, with the Beef, Duck, Lamb and Salmon trays just behind it in Excellent and the Chicken tray on its own in Average. Transparency reads Outstanding on all six and protein and processing Excellent on four of them. That is what a scoring system does with a label that declares its meat, weighs its vegetables and prints a figure beside every additive.

Our Excellent band holds the middle of the wet adult shelf, and most of this range comes to rest there, with the Turkey above it and the Chicken below. Carbohydrate converts to between 13.0% and 26.4% of dry matter, against the 15.8% typical for adult wet food. Most of the range is lean on starch, and the Salmon tray is the one carrying more of it. Protein converts to between 34.0% and 37.0% of dry matter with fat between 28.0% and 34.8%, a rich, meat-led reading for food fed from a tray.

Ingredients, as declared: Salmon & Chicken 65% (26% Freshly Prepared Salmon), Vegetables 14% (Potato, Peas & Carrot), Vitamins & Minerals, Salmon Oil (0.4%), Dried Tomato (0.15%), Seaweed (0.08%), Green Lipped Mussel (0.05%), Chicory (0.05%), Parsley (0.05%), Basil (0.05%), Green Tea (0.01%), Rosemary (0.01%), Rosehip (0.01%), Sunflower Oil

The 70% animal figure is the headline and the bracket beside it is the important part. On the Beef, Duck, Lamb and Turkey trays the named animal is 32% and chicken makes up the balance. The Chicken tray is the exception, with the whole 70% given to freshly prepared chicken. The Salmon tray works differently again. Salmon and chicken are declared together at 65%, with salmon itself at 26%.

Vegetables come next at 20%, named as fresh potato, peas and carrot, dropping to 14% on the Salmon tray. Peas add fibre and antioxidants along with a little protein. Carrots bring vitamin A once cooked, and potato does the job a grain would do in a cereal recipe. None of the three is weighed separately, which is the one place the label stops short.

The tail is short and mostly aromatic. Salmon oil at 0.2% brings omega-3, then dried tomato, seaweed for its iodine and trace minerals, and chicory at 0.05% as a prebiotic. Parsley, basil, green tea, rosemary and rosehip close it in trace amounts. The Salmon tray doubles its salmon oil to 0.4% and adds green lipped mussel and sunflower oil.

The additive panel is fully dosed, with vitamins A, D3 and E ahead of zinc, iron, manganese, copper, iodine and selenium, each with a printed figure per kilo. Cassia gum is declared with a figure too, at 2500mg per kilo on most of the range and a little more than that on the Salmon. The thickener is what gives a tray its set. Few wet labels print the amount at all, and this one does.

Ash converts to between 10.0% and 13.0% of dry matter, a normal mineral load for a wet food of this build, and moisture is declared on every label, running from 75.0% to 77.0%. That is a little drier than much of the wet shelf, which is part of why these trays carry between 108 and 120 kcal per 100g where most wet food sits nearer 97.

The odd one out in the range. Salmon and chicken are declared together at 65%, with freshly prepared salmon at 26%. Vegetables drop to 14%. Sunflower oil and green lipped mussel join the list, and the salmon oil is doubled to 0.4%. Estimated carbohydrate rises to 26.4% of dry matter, the highest of the six, its panel prints less vitamin D3 and no iron, and its energy figure of 112 kcal per 100g is our estimate.

£4.00 a kilo on the Beef, Duck and Lamb trays. The Chicken, Salmon and Turkey had no per-kilo figure when we checked. The size is a 400g tray. Four of the flavours are sold in packs of 8, and the rest come inside the Classics, the Meaty, the Poultry, the Tasty and the Variety selection packs. Some flavours also appear as a 150g tray in those selections.

As a guide, feeding works out at between £2.85 and £3.11 a day for a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition, on the trays we have a figure for. That assumes about 840 kcal a day, from the standard maintenance estimate of 110 × bodyweight^0.75. Across the range that corresponds to roughly 700 to 778 grams a day. The label's own guide for a dog of 10 to 20 kg runs from 500 to 860 grams.