McIntyres Adult Pouches in Gravy: Lamb review

All four pouches land in our Average band, and the analysis is not what put them there. Protein converts to 44.4% of dry matter and the estimated carbohydrate to 11.1%, against 15.8% for the typical adult wet food, so read as numbers this is a lean, meat forward pouch. What holds it back is description. Transparency reads Good rather than better because the animal content is written as a category rather than named, and protein and processing reads Average because sugars share the list with the meat. Our Excellent band is where the typical adult wet food settles, so the distance is genuine. It is a distance in what you are told, not in how the food is likely to agree with your dog.

Ingredients, as declared: the pack prints a SEPARATE composition for each variety in the box (transcribed from the back-of-pack panel): With Beef & Vegetables in Gravy: Meat and Animal Derivatives (41% including 4% Beef), Derivatives of Vegetable Origin (0.08% Chicory), Vegetables (1.0% Mix of Dried Carrots & Dried Peas, equivalent to 6.4% Mix of Carrots & Peas), Minerals, Oils and Fats (0.15% Fish Oil), Various Sugars. With Chicken & Vegetables in Gravy: Meat and Animal Derivatives (41% including 4% Chicken), Derivatives of Vegetable Origin (0.08% Chicory), Vegetables (1% Mix of Dried Carrots & Dried Peas, equivalent to 6.4% Mix of Carrots & Peas), Minerals, Oils and Fats (0.15% Fish Oil), Various Sugars. With Lamb in Gravy: Meat and Animal Derivatives (42% including 4% Lamb), Derivatives of Vegetable Origin (0.08% Chicory), Minerals, Oils and Fats (0.15% Fish Oil), Various Sugars. With Poultry in Gravy: Meat and Animal Derivatives (42% including 4% Poultry), Derivatives of Vegetable Origin (0.08% Chicory), Minerals, Oils and Fats (0.15% Fish Oil), Various Sugars. What the website publishes instead (one merged list for the whole box), Meat And Animal Derivatives (41%), Beef (4%), Derivatives Of Vegetabile Origin, Chicory, Vegetables, Mix Of Dried Carrots & Dried Peas (1%), Mix Of Carrots & Peas (6%), Minerals, Oils And Fats, Fish Oil, Various Sugars, Chicken (4%), Lamb (4%), Poultry (4%)

Meat and animal derivatives is a legal category covering the fleshy parts and processing products of warm blooded land animals. Any of them, in any proportion, and nothing on the label has to change when the mix does. Here it carries 41% of the beef and chicken pouches and 42% of the lamb and poultry ones, with 4% named. None of that is unusual in everyday wet food, and it raises no hygiene question. It does mean you take the recipe on trust.

The analysis is kinder than the ingredient list suggests. Protein converts to 44.4% of dry matter with fat at 30.6%, and the estimated carbohydrate lands at 11.1%, comfortably under the 15.8% the typical adult wet food runs at. Moisture is declared at 82%, which is high even for a wet food, and energy sits at 85 kcal per 100g against a typical 97. These are light pouches, and daily portions look generous.

The named plants are few and small. Chicory comes in at 0.08% as a prebiotic gesture, and the beef and chicken pouches add 1% of dried carrot and pea, which the label puts at 6.4% before drying. Fish oil is there at 0.15%, a token amount and not a working omega dose. Anyone avoiding fish should have their eye on that entry.

All four labels carry various sugars without a figure, and that is what a gravy of this kind usually leans on for colour and palatability. The added panel is short and dosed, running to vitamin D3 at 140 IU, vitamin E at 12 mg, zinc at 12 mg and iodine at 0.3 mg per kilo of food.

Meat and animal derivatives climbs to 42% here and lamb takes the named 4%. There is no vegetable entry on this label at all, so the pouch is meat, gravy, chicory and the added mineral and vitamin panel. Lamb is usually well received and easily digested, and it is the least common of the four on British shelves.

£2.44 a kilo. The pouches are 100g, boxed in twelves and forties.

As a guide, the daily energy need of a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition is about 840 kcal (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That is roughly 988 grams, or just under ten pouches, at about £2.41 a day.