Lifestage Grain Free Snap Pots review

Our scoring puts these pots in the Excellent band, level with the middle of the wet shelf. Read them as a wet food that does the job properly and does not run away from the field. Chicken at 60% is the strength, and the starch is kept in check: carbohydrate converts to an estimated 10.0% of dry matter where the typical adult wet food runs at 15.8%. What holds them back is the plant side, where dried potato and potato starch carry more weight than the peas and carrot.

Ingredients, as declared: Chicken: Chicken (60%), Dried Potato (4% equivalent to 17% Potato), Dried Peas (1.5% equivalent to 4.7% Peas), Minerals, Dried Carrot (0.65% equivalent to 5.7% Carrot), Potato Starch, Salmon Oil (0.2%), Sunflower Oil (0.2%), Dried Tomato, Dried Chicory Root (0.1% - source of inulin), Dried Yucca Schidigera (0.015%), Dried Blackcurrant, Citrus Extract, Dried Rosemary, Dried Pomegranate.

Chicken at 60% opens the list, with no second meat behind it. Chicken is the most used meat on the shelf for good reason, being highly digestible and reliably popular with dogs. That same ubiquity is why it draws more reactions than any other meat. If chicken has been a problem before, this is not the pot to test the theory on.

The label is refreshingly honest about its dried ingredients. Dried potato at 4% is declared as equivalent to 17% potato, dried peas at 1.5% as equivalent to 4.7% peas and dried carrot at 0.65% as equivalent to 5.7% carrot. The fresh weight standing behind each one is there to see. Peas and carrots both bring genuine nutrition with them, the carrot for vitamin A and soluble fibre and the peas for a spread of vitamins and minerals.

Potato starch follows them, and it is the one entry doing a purely mechanical job. Whole potato brings a range of nutrients along with its starch, while potato starch on its own is close to starch and nothing else, holding the pot together.

Salmon oil and sunflower oil sit at 0.2% each. Small, but named to their source, and the salmon oil is the reason these pots cannot be called fish free. Dried chicory root at 0.1% is there for its inulin, which the gut bacteria feed on. Dried yucca schidigera at 0.015% is a very old trick for keeping stools less pungent.

The tail is fruit and herb: dried tomato, dried blackcurrant, citrus extract, dried rosemary and dried pomegranate. All of it is trace level, and nobody buys the pot for these. Rosemary does earn its place, since it is a natural antioxidant and keeps fats from turning.

The added panel is short and dosed: vitamin A at 3000 IU, vitamin D3 at 350 IU and vitamin E at 40 mg. Then zinc at 25 mg, iron at 20 mg and manganese at 3.75 mg per kilo. On the analysis, protein converts to 40.0% of dry matter and fat to 34.0%, a genuinely dense little pot by wet food standards.

£5.00 a kilo, in 90 g pots sold four to a pack.

As a guide, feeding a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition comes to roughly 677 grams a day, or about £3.39. The maintenance target there is about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate).