Meatiful: Free Range Chicken review

Our Outstanding band holds all three recipes, and they arrive level with each other. They get there the simple way, with one named animal at 80% of the top of the list and very little else asked to do any work. The chicken reads Excellent for protein and processing, with the turkey and the lamb Outstanding. Nutritional balance and transparency are Outstanding right across the three. Wet food rates highly with us, and the typical tin reaches our Excellent band, so these three finish above the middle of an already strong shelf.

Ingredients, as declared: Chicken (80%) *, Brown Rice (6%)*, Chickpea Flour*, Minerals, Yucca Schidigera Extract (0.05%)*. *natural ingredient

The first line is the whole argument. Turkey, lamb or chicken takes 80%, named and quantified, and the label carries no second species at all. In wet food that is rare enough to be worth saying plainly. It also means each recipe can genuinely serve a dog being held to one protein, provided the one you pick is the right one for them.

Behind the meat the three part company a little. The turkey stays off grain entirely with chickpea flour at 8% and green beans at 4%. The lamb uses brown rice at 4% with carrots at 4% and a small amount of dried pea the label puts at 4.3% before drying. The chicken uses brown rice at 6% with chickpea flour behind it. The starch supports each recipe without ever carrying it. Carbohydrate converts to between 11.3% and 14.3% of dry matter, where the typical adult wet food runs at 15.8%.

Moisture is declared at 65% on all three, low for wet food, and that is why they read so energy dense at 174 to 185 kcal per 100g against a typical 97. In practice it means smaller servings than the tin your dog has come from, and it is worth weighing the first week's meals rather than judging them by eye.

The tail of the list is honest but sparse. Minerals are listed as a single word on every label, and only the free range chicken prints what they are. That panel gives vitamin A 3500 IU, vitamin D3 350 IU and vitamin E 35 mg, with zinc, calcium iodate and sodium selenite behind them. Yucca extract at 0.05% closes each list, a trace inclusion that is usually there to help with stool odour.

Free range chicken at 80% on brown rice at 6% with chickpea flour, the richest of the three with fat at 37.1% of dry matter and 185 kcal per 100g. Its vitamin and trace element doses are printed. None of the other labels here do that.

The turkey and the chicken are both £5.97 a kilo and the lamb is £9.34. All three come in packs of ten at 320g, with the turkey and chicken also offered in packs of ten at 720g.

A 15kg adult dog in moderate condition needs roughly 454 to 483 grams a day. For the chicken that is about £2.71 a day, for the turkey £2.77 and for the lamb £4.51, on a maintenance need of about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard estimate).