Morrisons Chief Meaty Chunks in Gravy: Adult (24 x 400g) review

All five land in our Average band, and the distance to the typical adult wet food, which reaches Excellent, is a real one. Almost all of it comes down to declaration. Transparency reads Good across the range, yet the animal content, the grains and the vegetable side are legal umbrella terms, free to change between batches while the wording on the pack stays the same. The only animal figure nailed down is that 4%. Protein and processing reads Average on the smaller packs and drops to Poor on the larger tins, while nutritional balance reads Outstanding on most of the range and Good on the two standard adult cases. None of that is a safety verdict. These tins have fed a very great many dogs perfectly well, and the analysis is ordinary rather than alarming; what the band reflects is how modest the named meat share is.

Ingredients, as declared: With Beef - Meat and Animal Derivatives (35%, including 4% Beef), Cereals, Minerals, Various Sugars, With Chicken - Meat and Animal Derivatives (35%, including 4% Chicken), Cereals, Minerals, Various Sugars, With Lamb - Meat and Animal Derivatives (35%, including 4% Lamb), Cereals, Minerals, Various Sugars

The legal category meat and animal derivatives covers the fleshy parts and the processing products of slaughtered warm-blooded land animals. It tells you nothing about which animals or which cuts, and it allows the mix to move from batch to batch. That breadth is the point: the term stretches from very good meat to the plainest material, and a label leaning on it asks for trust. The one fixed point on every pack in this range is the named species at 4%, which is what tells the beef from the chicken from the turkey.

The 400g tins add cereals, another category term. Their estimated carbohydrate runs well above the 15.8% of dry matter typical for adult wet food. The 100g packs leave cereals out altogether and estimate a good deal lower. Carbohydrate on any wet label is worked out by difference, once the declared protein, fat, fibre, ash and moisture are accounted for, so it is always an estimate rather than a printed figure.

Every recipe here lists various sugars. Dogs enjoy sweetness much as we do, which is why manufacturers reach for it, and no amount is declared. A number against that entry is the thing we would most like to see, and it is the line that tells you these recipes are working hard on palatability.

Not everything on these packs is vague. The 100g formats name chicory and fish oil and give both a percentage. Chicory root is a prebiotic and a source of soluble fibre, and fish oil is a genuine source of omega-3. Both sit at trace level, but each is named and measured, and each is doing something identifiable.

The analysis itself is unremarkable in the reassuring sense. Protein converts to between 32.4% and 47.2% of dry matter across the range, and fat between 16.2% and 30.6%, which is ordinary wet food territory. The two standard adult 400g recipes declare calcium, converting to 1.62% of dry matter, a comfortable level for adult maintenance.

Where an added panel is printed, on the 100g formats, every entry on it carries a figure: vitamin D3 and vitamin E, with iodine and zinc, each stated per kilogram of food. That is a small piece of precision on labels that otherwise keep their detail to themselves.

The same 35% recipe as the smaller adult case, sold as a 24 tin case and also in 6 x 400g, in beef, chicken and lamb with each 4% species matched to its own tin. The analysis is identical, at 6.0% protein as fed and an estimated 71 kcal per 100g. Choosing between the two cases comes down to storage and how fast your dog eats, not to what goes in the bowl.

Across the range the packs run from £1.43 to £2.92 a kilo, in 100g and 400g formats with cases from 6 up to 24.

As a guide, feeding a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition works out at between £1.38 and £3.00 a day depending on which pack you buy. That is roughly 966 to 1183 grams, assuming about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). A gram of wet food holds very little energy, so daily portions run large, and many households pair it with a dry meal.