Hero by Asda Adult Dog Cans in Gravy: With Turkey review

All three tins land in our Average band, close enough together that the flavour you pick makes no difference to the reading. The typical adult wet food sits some way above them, in our Excellent band, and most of that distance is on the meat side. Protein and processing reads Poor, while nutritional balance comes back Good, transparency Outstanding and value Average. None of this is a warning about the tin. It is a plain supermarket dinner that has kept a great many dogs in good order, and the band reflects how plain the recipe is rather than what the dog experiences.

Ingredients, as declared: Meat and Animal Derivatives (35%, including 4% Turkey), Cereals, Minerals, Various Sugars

Meat and animal derivatives opens every tin, 36% in the beef and 35% in the chicken and the turkey, and the animal named on the front accounts for 4% of that. In law that term covers the fleshy parts and processing products of warm-blooded land animals. It takes in everything from good muscle meat to the offcuts, and commits the maker to nothing in particular. Some very respectable recipes use it to keep a formula private, and plenty of everyday ones use it because the mix follows whatever the supply chain has. Either way, it is the maker you are trusting, not the recipe you are reading.

Cereals is the next entry, and it is just as open a word. Wheat, maize, barley, oats and rice all live inside it, and the grain can change between production runs without a word changing on the tin. For most dogs it will not matter. If you are keeping a dog off one particular grain, it is the detail that matters most.

The analysis is where firm ground returns. Protein converts to 32.4% of dry matter and fat to 16.2%. That gentle, middle-of-the-road balance suits a dog that struggles with richer dinners. The figure that stands out is carbohydrate. Our estimate puts it at 37.9% of dry matter against 15.8% for the typical adult wet food, and that tells you the cereals are carrying a large share of the tin.

Various sugars closes the list. Sugar is in dog food for the reason it is in ours, and in a list of four entries it is the last one, so the quantity is modest. Still, if your dog is carrying extra weight or has had dental work done, it is a line to be aware of.

The added panel is short and fully dosed, with vitamin D₃ at 150 IU and vitamin E at 15 mg alongside iron, zinc, manganese, iodine and copper, each printed with its own figure. Calcium is not declared anywhere on the label, so the mineral balance can only be read as far as the ash line goes.

Turkey at 4%, on the same 35% block as the chicken tin. Leaner and lighter than chicken, turkey often agrees with a dog who finds heavier dinners a struggle, and that makes it a sensible tin to start the range on.

£1.45 a kilo, in 400g tins sold in packs of 6, at the same figure for beef, chicken and turkey.

Feeding a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition comes to roughly 1120 grams a day, or close to three tins, working from about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). At that rate the daily figure is around £1.62.