Lily's Kitchen Tins Puppy review

Both tins finish in our Excellent band. The middle of the wet puppy field lands there too, so this is a strong category and these recipes belong in the thick of it. The turkey and duck tin edges just ahead of the chicken, and both read Excellent for protein and processing, thanks to the fresh meat that opens each list. Nutritional balance and transparency read Outstanding on both tins, with value Excellent alongside protein and processing, the two of them matching each other pillar for pillar.

Ingredients, as declared: Fresh Chicken (67%), Potatoes (2%), Carrots (1%), Vitamins & Chelated Minerals, Salmon Oil. Herbs & botanicals: Golden Rod, Nettle, Aniseed, Celery Seed, Rosehips, Marigold Petals, Cleavers, Seaweed, Alfalfa, Milk Thistle, Dandelion Root, Burdock Root.

Fresh meat leads both recipes, and that is the format's honest headline as well as its quirk. Fresh meat carries its water when it is weighed, so what reaches the finished tin is a smaller share than the printed percentage suggests. Even discounted, meat is plainly the bulk of what is in here.

The starch is nominal in both. The chicken tin takes potatoes at 2% and carrots at 1% and stops there, while the turkey and duck tin adds sweet potatoes at 4% with pumpkin, kale at 2%, cranberries, potatoes and carrots. Carbohydrate is estimated at 1.8% as fed either way. That works out at 9.0% of dry matter in the chicken tin and 8.6% in the turkey and duck, both under the 13.6% typical for wet puppy food.

The analysis is the shape you want from a meat-led wet food. Protein converts to 53.0% of dry matter in the chicken tin and 52.4% in the turkey and duck, with fat at 25.5% and 25.2%. The two are close cousins nutritionally even where their ingredient lists diverge.

Salmon oil appears in both, declared at 0.5% where the turkey and duck tin bothers to say so. It does the omega 3 job that a growing brain and eye draw on, and the coat with them. Fish therefore belongs on the allergen picture for a range whose meats are otherwise poultry.

Herbs and botanicals close both labels and, refreshingly, they are named one by one instead of hiding behind a blanket term. Golden rod, nettle, rosehips, cleavers, milk thistle and dandelion root are among the trace inclusions, so treat them as character in the bowl.

What neither label offers is a mineral panel. The label lists vitamins and chelated minerals as an ingredient, with no doses printed and no calcium figure anywhere. On that one point the tins ask for trust in the recipe. Energy reads 91 kcal per 100g in the chicken tin and 95 in the turkey and duck, both a little under the 106 typical for the format.

The original tin keeps to a single meat, fresh chicken at 67%. Behind it there are only potatoes at 2% and carrots at 1%, plus the vitamin and chelated mineral mix, the salmon oil and the named herb blend. Protein comes in at 10.6% as fed, or 53.0% of dry matter once the 80.0% moisture is taken out, and energy reads 91 kcal per 100g. With chicken as the only meat, this is the tin for a pup kept to one animal, though the salmon oil stops it being a fish free recipe.

£11.33 a kilo, sold in 150g tins.

Puppy appetites climb and then level off as growth slows. Read the tin count off the maker's guide for the age your pup is now and the weight they are heading towards, then revisit it every few weeks.