Hero by Asda Adult Dog 300g Pate Trays: With Beef review

Both trays share one recipe and one placing, in our Average band. Protein and processing reads Average and transparency Good, an honest summary of the label. The tray names 4% for its flavour meat, and the animal content, the oil, the sugars and the vegetable side all come in category words after that.

It is worth saying plainly that the analysis is not what holds this back: nutritional balance reads Outstanding. Protein comes out at 47.4% of dry matter once the water is stripped away, with estimated carbohydrate at 13.2% against the 15.8% typical for adult wet food. That is a lean and protein-forward reading by any measure. The typical adult wet food reaches our Excellent band, and the distance between that and this tray is almost entirely a question of how much the maker is willing to name.

Ingredients, as declared: Meat and Animal Derivatives (60% including 4% Beef), Minerals, Oils and Fats (0.2% Fish Oil), Various Sugars, Derivatives of Vegetable Origin (0.1% Chicory)

Five entries make up the whole recipe, and four of them are the broad terms permitted by feed labelling law. In practice that means the maker can source what is available and keep the same words on the pack, which is how supermarket pate is usually written. It asks you to trust the brand rather than read the tray, and that is a fair trade for some households and not for others.

The named parts are worth having. Beef on one tray and turkey with chicken on the other are each declared at 4%, and fish oil is printed at 0.2% inside the oils and fats entry. Fish oil is one of the better things you can find on a wet label, carrying omega-3 fats that plant oils cannot supply, so it is a shame the remainder of that entry stays anonymous.

Sugars are declared as various sugars with no figure attached. They are there because dogs like the taste, and no amount is printed anywhere on the label. The estimated carbohydrate of 13.2% of dry matter is low enough to suggest a flavouring and not a foundation.

The declared analysis reads well. Moisture is high at 81.0%, which is what a pate of this kind is, and once it is set aside protein converts to 47.4% of dry matter and fat to a moderate 26.3%. That combination is kind to a dog that finds richer wet foods too much, and it is why these trays are light on calories at an estimated 83 kcal per 100g.

The additive panel gives a figure for every entry, listing vitamin D3 and vitamin E with copper, zinc, manganese and iodine. Chicory at 0.1% finishes the ingredient list, included for the inulin in its root, which works as a prebiotic and as a gentle source of soluble fibre.

This label names beef at 4% and nothing else by animal, with the balance of the 60% left as meat and animal derivatives. It is the plainer of the two, and a good pick if your dog has shown a preference for red meat.

£2.07 a kilo, in a single 300g tray.

As a guide, feeding works out at around £2.10 a day for a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition. That is roughly 1014 grams a day, assuming about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). Calories are not declared on these labels, so the 83 kcal per 100g behind that estimate is ours. The printed feeding table did not read sensibly when we checked it, so the amounts here come from the calories. A gram of wet food this light holds few calories, so the daily portions look generous.