Harringtons Just 6 Wet: Chicken review

The lamb and the salmon finish in our Outstanding band with the chicken a whisker behind in Excellent, which is a tidy result for a recipe this plain. Nothing clever is going on: the placing comes from a big declared meat share, a full printed analysis and an additive panel with a figure beside every entry. Two of the three climb clear of our Excellent band, and that band holds the middle of the wet adult shelf.

Estimated carbohydrate runs from 14.8% to 20.0% of dry matter, against 15.8% for the typical adult wet food. The peas and potatoes are doing a normal amount of work and not propping the recipe up. Protein converts to between 34.8% and 41.3% of dry matter. Protein and processing, nutritional balance and transparency read Outstanding on all three, with value Outstanding on the lamb and salmon and Excellent on the chicken.

Ingredients, as declared: Freshly Prepared Chicken (70%, 65% Freshly Prepared Chicken, 5% Freshly Prepared Chicken Gravy), Peas (6%), Sweet Potato (4.2%), Potato (4%), Vitamins & Minerals, Salmon Oil (0.2%)

Freshly prepared meat at 70% opens every label, and on the lamb and salmon that is the whole story. The chicken recipe divides its share, declaring 65% freshly prepared chicken and 5% freshly prepared chicken gravy, so the gravy is counted inside the headline and not added on top of it. Either way the animal is named and weighed, which is what you are paying attention to on a wet label.

Peas at 6% come next, then sweet potato at 4.2% and potato at 4%, each with its own figure. Whole peas carry a little protein along with fibre and antioxidants, and at this share they earn their place. Sweet potato and potato do the job a cereal would do elsewhere, which is how the recipe stays grain free without leaning on anything exotic.

Salmon oil at 0.2% closes the list on all three and is the one entry that crosses between the flavours. The amount is small but real, and it brings long chain omega-3 fats no plant oil can supply. That is why the chicken and lamb recipes carry fish in their allergen reading.

The added panel is dosed throughout, with vitamins A, D3 and E ahead of zinc, iron, manganese, copper, iodine and selenium, every one with a figure printed beside it. Cassia gum appears there too, at 3000 mg per kilo on each recipe, and it is what gives the food its set in the pack.

The three analyses differ just enough to matter. The chicken is the highest in protein at 41.3% of dry matter, and the lamb carries the most fibre at 3.5%. The salmon is the richest, with fat converting to 34.8% of dry matter and energy at 120 kcal per 100g against 109 and 110 for the other two.

Freshly prepared chicken at 70%, made up of 65% chicken and 5% chicken gravy, and the only label of the three without vegetable stock on it. Protein tops the set here at 41.3% of dry matter. For a poultry-friendly dog it is the leanest of the three.

£5.79 a kilo on the Chicken and the Lamb, in a 380g size sold in packs of 8. The Salmon had no per-kilo figure when we checked.

A 15kg adult dog in moderate condition sits at about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). The Chicken comes to around £4.42 a day and the Lamb to £4.46. That corresponds to roughly 700 to 771 grams a day across the three. The printed feeding table on these labels reads oddly where we found it, so those amounts come from the calories rather than from the guide.