Lukullus Junior Tins: Chicken & Veal review

Two of the three tins settle in our Excellent band, with the Poultry & Game a step behind in our Good band. The gap comes down to how each tin is filled, with nothing worrying behind it. The lamb recipe leans on one large meat block with a much smaller turkey one, while the other two spread their animal content evenly across a pair. Keep the bar in mind while you read that. Adult wet food has its middle already in our Excellent band, so a Good result on a tin like this still means a perfectly sound dinner. Nutritional balance reads Outstanding across the three, with transparency Outstanding on the chicken and the lamb tins and Excellent on the poultry one, and protein and processing following the same pattern a rung lower.

Ingredients, as declared: Ingredients, Chicken & Veal with Oats, Carrots and Linseed Oil: 33% chicken (heart, meat, liver, gizzards, neck), 33% veal, (heart, meat, liver, lung) 26.5% meat stock, 3% carrots, 3% oats, 1% minerals, 0.5% linseed oil

The animal content comes in two pieces on each label. Chicken and veal take 33% apiece on the first; poultry leads at 46% with game at 20% on the second; lamb takes 51% with turkey heart at 15% on the third. Meat stock follows at 26.4% or 26.5%, declared as stock rather than passed off as water. Between them these tins put around two thirds of their weight into animal.

The parts are spelled out where the animal is: heart, meat, liver, gizzards and neck on the chicken, heart, meat, liver and lung on the veal, heart, meat, liver and tripe on the lamb. Organ meat is dense in the vitamins and in the iron and copper a growing dog needs a good deal of. Tripe is famously persuasive with a puppy who would rather chew the bowl than eat from it.

Calcium at 1.2% of dry matter is the number to look at on a puppy food, because a large breed puppy grows badly on too much of it and struggles on too little. Many wet labels do not declare it at all, and the level here suits a dog on the way to a big adult frame.

The plant side is small and varies by recipe. Oats and carrots at 3% each on the chicken tin, sweet potato and blueberries at 3% on the poultry, millet and apple at 3% on the lamb. Carbohydrate converts to an estimated 21.6% of dry matter, above the 15.8% typical of adult wet food, and that figure comes from the single analysis panel the maker publishes for all three.

One named oil finishes each list at 0.5%, linseed on the chicken, sunflower on the poultry and safflower on the lamb, so there is no anonymous oils and fats entry anywhere. The added panel is short, with a dose printed against each line. Vitamin D3 at 200 IU, biotin at 300 mcg, zinc at 15 mg, manganese at 3 mg and iodine at 0.75 mg per kilo. Vitamin E is notable by its absence.

Chicken and veal at 33% each. The chicken brings heart, meat, liver, gizzards and neck; the veal brings heart, meat, liver and lung. Carrots and oats at 3% each are the only plants, and linseed oil supplies a plant source of omega-3. This is the mildest pairing of the three, which makes it a sensible starting point for a puppy new to wet food.

£3.75 a kilo on all three recipes. They come as 400g and 800g tins, sold in packs of 6 and in 24 tin saver packs.

As a guide, a 15kg dog in moderate condition eats roughly 740 grams a day, at around £2.78. That works from about 840 kcal a day, the standard maintenance estimate of 110 × bodyweight^0.75. A growing puppy burns more energy for their size than an adult does, so a young dog heading towards 15kg will be eating close to those amounts well before they get there.