Lukullus Adult Pouches Grain Free: Duck & Veal review

Three of these pouches finish in our Excellent band. Beef à la Provençale reads Excellent for protein and processing, with Outstanding on both nutritional balance and transparency, while Poultry and Lamb reads Excellent for its protein and processing too. That is a strong showing anywhere, and it puts them level with the middle of the adult wet market, which occupies the same band.

Ingredients, as declared: Duck & Veal with Sweet Potatoes, Apple & Linseed Oil, 36% veal (heart, lung, tripe), 30% duck (heart, stomach, neck), 26.5% stock, 3% sweet potato, 3% apple, 1% minerals, 0.5% linseed oil

The thing that sets these labels apart is the breakdown of the meat. Where most wet food gives you a species and a percentage, these pouches give you the cuts as well. The Provençale lists 65% beef as meat, heart, lung and tripe. The Duck and Veal gives 36% veal as heart, lung and tripe, with 30% duck as heart, stomach and neck. Organ meat is genuinely nutritious, tripe especially so, and naming it is a choice a maker only makes when it is happy to be read closely.

Stock is the second entry every time, at between 25.8% and 27.8%, and it does the job that added water does elsewhere while carrying rather more flavour. It is also the one part of these lists that stays unnamed, and on a strict elimination plan that leaves a gap to think about.

The plant side is deliberately thin. Provençale takes courgettes at 3%, potatoes at 2%, peppers at 2% and aubergines at 1%; Duck and Veal takes sweet potato and apple at 3% each; Poultry and Lamb takes sweet potato at 5%. Nothing here is a filler in any meaningful quantity, and the estimated carbohydrate stays between 12.1% and 21.6% of dry matter.

The added oils are chosen with some care: olive oil on the Provençale, linseed oil on the Duck and Veal, grapeseed oil with a little dandelion on the Poultry and Lamb. Linseed is a plant source of omega 3 and one of the better ones, while olive oil brings vitamin E along with its fat.

The additive panels are printed with figures on every pouch, though they are not identical. Vitamin A appears on the Provençale and on none of the others, and biotin appears on two of the labels. A short panel is not much of a worry on a recipe this meat heavy, since the ingredients themselves bring plenty of the micronutrition.

Poultry is the one word on these labels that pulls the other way. It is a category term covering chicken, duck, goose and turkey in any proportion, which is fine for most dogs and a real limit for one being taken through an elimination diet.

Veal at 36% and duck at 30%, both broken down into their cuts, with sweet potato and apple at 3% each and linseed oil for omega 3. At an estimated 17.0% carbohydrate of dry matter it sits in the middle of this shelf, and it is the only pouch to carry duck by name.

£4.72 a kilo on Beef à la Provençale, Duck and Veal and Poultry and Lamb, each in a 300g pouch sold in a pack of 6 or a saver pack of 24.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition takes roughly 750 grams a day of the three single recipes, at around £3.54. The basis is about 840 kcal a day, from 110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate.