JosiDog Paté: Tripe review

All four tins come out together in our Average band, which is no great surprise for four foods sharing one analysis. Finest Mix does edge the other three, and naming is why: it declares game, chicken, beef and pork at 4.0% each. Every animal a label is willing to name is something our scoring can see and credit. The typical adult wet food sits two bands above all four in our Excellent band, and again the reason is disclosure. On the numbers alone these tins do more than their labels let on, with dry-matter protein of 44.7% and an estimated carbohydrate of 13.2%, which sits below the 15.8% typical for the category. That is a decent bowl of food described in the fewest possible words.

Ingredients, as declared: meat and animal derivatives (tripe 4.0 %); cereals; minerals; vegetable by-products

Four entries make up the whole list, and three of them are legal category headings. Meat and animal derivatives covers the fleshy parts of any slaughtered warm-blooded land animal and everything that comes off the carcass afterwards; cereals covers any grain; vegetable by-products covers a wide field of plant material. Any of them can change between batches with the wording identical. A recipe like that is one you take on the maker's word.

The fixed point on every tin is the named animal at 4.0%. On beef, chicken and tripe that is a single animal, and on Finest Mix it is four of them, game, chicken, beef and pork, each with its own figure. That named share is small, so the animal on the label tells you what the tin tastes of rather than what it is mostly made from.

None of this is the alarm signal a British shopper might read it as. Continental makers use these headings far more freely than UK brands do, and the term stretches from excellent material to very ordinary material without changing a letter. What you give up in return is the ability to include or exclude a particular animal with confidence.

The analysis is where this range earns its keep. Protein converts to 44.7% of dry matter, well ahead of the wet-food middle ground, fat to 26.3%, and the estimated carbohydrate to 13.2%, below the category norm despite cereals sitting second on the list. Ash converts to 13.2%, which points to a decent mineral and bone contribution behind that meat line.

The energy figure of 85 kcal per 100g is the maker's own, not our arithmetic. That is worth having, since portioning then rests on their measurement. The added panel is brief, with vitamin D3 at 110 IU, vitamin E at 10 mg and zinc, manganese and copper each dosed per kilo.

Tripe named at 4.0%, the stomach lining of grazing animals and a traditional favourite in a dog's bowl. It is rich and strongly scented, and most dogs find it hard to refuse. This is the tin to try when a dog has gone quiet about dinner.

£3.11 a kilo across all four recipes, sold in 400g and 800g tins.

As a guide, feeding a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition works out at around £3.06 a day, which is roughly 984 grams. That is based on about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). Wet food holds few calories per gram, so daily amounts on that scale are normal enough.