Morrisons Grain Free Complete Senior Trays review

This tray reaches our Excellent band, with nutritional balance and transparency both reading Outstanding, protein and processing Good and value Excellent. The typical adult wet food reaches that band as well, so this tray is holding its own in strong company, not standing clear of a soft field. Chicken named at 60%, a percentage printed beside every plant ingredient, and an estimated carbohydrate of 8.0% of dry matter against a wet-food norm of 15.8% are what lift it. Both joint ingredients carry a printed figure too, which few labels bother to do.

Ingredients, as declared: Chicken (60%), Dried Potato (4% Equivalent to 17% Potato), Dried Peas (1.5% Equivalent to 4.7% Peas), Minerals, Dried Carrot (0.65% Equivalent to 5.7% Carrot), Potato Starch, Salmon Oil (0.2%), Sunflower Oil (0.2%), Dried Tomato, Dried Chicory Root (0.1%, Source of Inulin), Glucosamine (0.03%) Dried Yucca Schidigera (0.015%), Chondroitin (0.01%), Dried Blackcurrant (0.005%), Citrus Extract (0.005%), Dried Rosemary (0.005%), Dried Pomegranate (0.005%)

All the meat is chicken, 60% of the tray, and the label says so plainly. That is the useful kind of declaration: one animal, one number, nothing tucked behind a category term. Salmon oil at 0.2% is the only other ingredient of animal origin. A dog kept off fish cannot have the tray, though it suits one kept off every meat but chicken.

Every part of the small plant side carries a figure. Dried potato at 4% equates to 17% fresh potato. Dried peas at 1.5% equate to 4.7%, dried carrot at 0.65% to 5.7%, and potato starch sits behind them as a binder. The carrot brings vitamin A and soluble fibre, while the peas add fibre and a small amount of plant protein. The starch is there for texture.

Glucosamine at 0.03% and chondroitin at 0.01% are the senior additions. Meat and cartilage contain both of them naturally, and both are routine additions to food for older dogs. The evidence for what they achieve is mixed, so read them as a welcome extra on top of dinner and not as treatment. If a vet has diagnosed joint disease and prescribed something for it, keep to that, with this as dinner alongside.

Chicory root at 0.1% supplies inulin, which acts as a prebiotic fibre, and yucca at 0.015% is a common trace inclusion. Blackcurrant, citrus extract, rosemary and pomegranate each appear at 0.005%, which is decoration and not nutrition. Rosemary at that level is doing more to keep the fat fresh than to feed the dog.

The analysis is where this tray parts company with most food aimed at older dogs. Protein converts to 40.0% of dry matter and fat to a hearty 34.0%, and energy is declared rather than estimated at 117 kcal per 100g, against the 97 kcal typical of adult wet food. For an old dog that has gone thin, that density is a real advantage; for one that has gone the other way, it is a reason to weigh the tray out. The added panel is fully dosed, with vitamins A, D3 and E alongside zinc, iron and manganese.

£3.16 a kilo, in trays of about 396 g.

A 15kg adult dog in moderate condition would get through roughly 718 grams a day here, working out at around £2.27. The usual assumption behind that is 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate).