Montys Larder Monty's Larder: Beef Casserole review

Five of the six trays, everything except the Fish Pie, sit in our Outstanding band, and the Fish Pie itself follows a step behind in our Excellent band. The typical fresh food sits in our Outstanding band too, which puts this range in the company of the strongest category we score, and all but one of these trays holds that band. Nutritional balance and transparency read Outstanding right across the six. Protein and processing and value are both Outstanding on every tray but the Fish Pie, where each reads Excellent, so the analysis and the meat share are what separate them.

Ingredients, as declared: Beef (60%), (Mince 35% Beef Heart 20%, Liver 5%), Chickpeas, Potatoes, Carrots, Spinach, Beef Stock, Beef Tallow, Apples, Calcium Carbonate, Salmon Oil, Turmeric, Seed Mix (Hemp, Sunflower, Safflower), Seaweed.

Fresh food is cooked gently and kept cold, and these labels read like recipes because that is what they are. Every meat dish opens with its meat in declared proportions and prints the heart and liver separately. On the two beef recipes that means 35% mince, 20% heart and 5% liver inside a 60% beef share. That is a level of detail most ranges never reach.

Organ meat is doing real work here. Heart is a muscle, not an organ, and it is lean and dense in what hard working tissue carries. Liver at 5% brings vitamin A, B12, copper and folate in a concentration nothing else in the tray can match. Plenty of fresh ranges include some organ; very few print the proportions.

The plate around the meat is genuine vegetable rather than starch filler, though potato does most of the carbohydrate work. Spinach, carrots, savoy cabbage, parsnips, beetroot and apples appear across the range, with chickpeas in the beef casserole and the fish pie. Sweet potato turns up in four of the recipes. Nutritionally it beats the ordinary potato, with more fibre and a great deal more vitamin A.

Fats are handled two ways. Salmon oil brings omega 3 to the beef casserole, the cottage pie and the lamb hotpot, joined there by a seed mix of hemp, sunflower and safflower. The chicken supper, the chicken and beef stew and the lamb hotpot use a vegetable oil instead or as well. That is the one entry across the whole range that does not name the plant behind it.

Seaweed closes almost every list, appearing as kelp under its own name in the cottage pie, and it is there for iodine and trace minerals. Calcium carbonate is added to the beef casserole, the cottage pie and the chicken supper as a mineral top up in recipes that carry no bone. The declared additive panels are short and vary noticeably between recipes. The meat dishes carry vitamin D3, vitamin E and magnesium with manganese, while the fish pie carries a trace element set.

Moisture runs from 70% to 75%, which is normal for food you keep cold, and it is why the declared figures look small on the pack. With the water out, protein across the range converts to between 36.7% and 46.4% of dry matter, and fat to between 12.0% and 33.3%. That is a genuine spread of richness from one tray to the next, so a dog wanting a lighter bowl and a dog wanting a heartier one are both catered for.

Beef at 60%, split into 35% mince, 20% heart and 5% liver, with chickpeas, potatoes, carrots and spinach around it and beef stock and beef tallow adding richness. At 180 kcal per 100g it is the most concentrated tray in the range, so portions run smallest here, and turmeric and the hemp, sunflower and safflower seed mix round it off.

Five of the six recipes are £9.95 a kilo, with the Fish Pie at £10.80. All are sold in 400g, 700g and 1kg single meal trays.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition works through between 467 and 618 grams a day, depending on the recipe. Behind that sits about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75), the standard maintenance estimate. That comes to between £4.64 and £6.30 a day, with the richer beef trays feeding in smaller amounts than the lighter chicken and fish ones.