Lukullus Senior Tins Grain Free: Veal & Turkey review

This tin lands in our Excellent band, and it earns that by keeping the animal content high and the plant list to a couple of lines. Set it against the rest of the adult wet shelf and the achievement is clearer. The middle of that category is itself an Excellent band food, so this tin is holding its own where standards are already high. Protein and processing reads Excellent, with nutritional balance and transparency both Outstanding, which is close to a full sweep for a tinned food.

Ingredients, as declared: 38% turkey (heart, meat, gizzards, liver, neck), 28.2% stock, 26% veal ( heart, lung, tripe ), 4% sweet potato, 2% pear, 1% minerals, 0.5% linseed oil, 0.1% green lipped mussel, 0.1% brewer's yeast, 0.1% MOS

Turkey leads at 38%, listed as heart, meat, gizzards, liver and neck, with veal behind it at 26% as heart, lung and tripe. Stock at 28.2% is named as stock and carries its own percentage. Together the turkey and veal account for most of the tin. Protein converts to 48.6% of dry matter. That reading is a strong one for a wet food, and it helps an old dog hold onto muscle.

The organ meats are doing more than filling space. Liver is dense in B12, vitamin A, copper and folate, and tripe brings its own enzymes and a smell that persuades a dog who has become half-hearted about dinner. Both are easy for a label to blur into a category term, so seeing them named and counted here counts for something.

Sweet potato at 4% and pear at 2% are the whole of the starchy side. Carbohydrate converts to an estimated 10.9% of dry matter, where the typical adult wet food runs at 15.8%. Linseed oil at 0.5% adds a plant source of omega-3, and fat sits at 26.7% of dry matter, moderate enough for a dog whose exercise has tailed off.

The senior touches sit at the bottom of the list. Green lipped mussel and MOS at 0.1% each and brewer's yeast at 0.1% are traces rather than treatments, and the mussel is also why this label carries a fish entry. L-carnitine is the exception, printed at 200 mg per kilo in the additive panel, which is a genuine inclusion aimed at fat metabolism and lean muscle. If your dog has a diagnosed joint problem, keep to whatever the vet has prescribed, with this as the dinner underneath it.

The rest of the panel is short and every figure is printed. Vitamin D3 sits at 200 IU, vitamin E at 20 IU and biotin at 300 mcg. Zinc is at 25 mg, manganese at 1.4 mg, iodine at 0.75 mg and copper at 1 mg per kilo. Calcium is not declared, which is a smaller matter on an adult and senior food than it would be on a puppy one.

£4.16 a kilo, in 400g and 800g tins sold in packs of 6, with a 24 tin saver pack of the 400g size.

As a guide, feeding a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition works out at around 875 grams a day, or £3.64. Behind the figure sits about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate).