James Wellbeloved Puppy Wet Loaf Can: Chicken, Rice & Vegetables review

This loaf settles in our Good band, one step under the Excellent band where wet puppy food typically lands. Wet is the strongest field we look at, and this one holds its place in it without leading. Nutritional balance and transparency both read Outstanding, with protein and processing behind them in Average. What lifts those two is the brevity: ten entries in total, chicken at the top and a percentage against almost every plant beneath it. What holds the overall reading back is the protein and processing side, where a single animal entry has the whole recipe to carry.

Ingredients, as declared: chicken* (45%), rice (4%), carrots (3.5%), minerals, peas (0.5%), dried beet pulp (0.5%), potato starch, linseed oil (0.3%), alfalfa (0.1%), seaweed. *Natural ingredients

Chicken at 45% opens the list and, unusually, closes the animal side of it too. Nowhere on it will you find an unnamed fat, a fish oil or a hydrolysate. A pup on a single protein trial can use this can without an asterisk hanging over it.

The declared protein of 7.2% looks small until it is put on a dry matter basis, where it converts to 37.9%, with fat converting to 23.7%. Those are the proportions of a food built from meat, and they sit comfortably for a dog still growing.

The plant side is short and specific. Rice at 4% and carrots at 3.5% lead it, then peas at 0.5%, dried beet pulp at 0.5% and alfalfa at 0.1%, with potato starch binding the loaf. Carrots bring vitamin A and beet pulp a gentle, well-tolerated fibre, while the rice is what keeps the can off a grain free list.

Linseed oil at 0.3% carries the omega 3, a deliberate choice worth noticing. Plant omega 3 is not quite the equal of the marine kind, but it keeps fish out of the recipe altogether, and for a household avoiding fish that is often a trade well worth making.

Calcium converts to 1.68% of dry matter, with ash at 9.5%. Growing bones need generous minerals, and small and medium pups will make good use of both. Large breed growth is usually planned around a lower calcium level. If your pup is destined to be big, ask your vet how much of the bowl this should fill.

Carbohydrate converts to an estimated 26.8% of dry matter, higher than the 13.6% a typical wet puppy food runs at. Energy is an estimated 81 kcal per 100g against a 106 kcal typical. Neither figure is a problem on its own; together they mean a food that feeds in volume, so the empty tins mount up faster than they would with a denser wet food.

£9.98 a kilo, sold singly or in a multipack.

What a puppy needs each day rises through the growing months and then settles once the frame is finished. Start from the guide on the can, then let your pup's outline decide the rest.