Morrisons Grain Free Pate Trays: Chicken with Beef and Pork review

These trays land in our Good band, a step behind the middle of the wet category, with nutritional balance and transparency both reading Outstanding and protein and processing and value each reading Good. The meat declaration does most of the lifting: 63% of each tray is named animal, spread across four species with a percentage against every one of them. There is no cereal, no potato and no unnamed fat to be found. Protein converts to 55.6% of dry matter, which is high in a wet food. Carbohydrate is estimated at 3.3%, a long way under the 15.8% wet food normally carries. A short additive panel holds it back from climbing further, as does the sheer number of animals sharing one tray.

Ingredients, as declared: Chicken* (26%), Beef* (21%), Pork* (15%), Turkey* (1%), Minerals, Fish Oils* (0.15%), Chicory* (0.08%), Blueberry*, Cranberry*, Parsley*, Rosemary*, Spinach*, *Natural Ingredient

The meat is named down to the last percentage point. On the beef tray it is beef at 29.5%, chicken at 19%, pork at 13.5% and turkey at 1%. On the chicken tray it is chicken at 26%, beef at 21%, pork at 15% and turkey at 1%. Either way the named animal content comes to 63% of the tray, which is a strong figure and, more to the point, a checkable one.

Neither recipe carries grain, potato or pea, so what carbohydrate there is comes along with the meat. That is why the estimate lands at 3.3% of dry matter. That leaves protein at 55.6% of dry matter and fat at 27.8%, a lean, meat-forward profile that suits a working dog or one that needs protein without a heavy tray in front of it.

Pork is the inclusion worth noticing. Dog food does not use it much, so plenty of dogs have never tried it. That novelty is no help for an avoidance plan here, with beef, chicken and turkey sharing the same tray.

Fish oils at 0.15% bring omega-3. Chicory at 0.08% brings inulin, a prebiotic fibre the gut bacteria live on. Blueberry, cranberry, parsley, rosemary and spinach follow with no percentages against them, so they sit below the ingredients that do carry one and are best read as garnish.

Every entry on the list is marked with an asterisk for natural ingredient. There is no legal definition behind that phrase, so it tells you considerably less than the percentages printed just above it. The added panel, by contrast, is fully dosed, with vitamin D3 and vitamin E alongside zinc, copper, manganese and iodine.

Chicken heads this one at 26%, with beef at 21% and pork at 15% following, which makes it the lighter-tasting of the two. The same four animals are present, simply in a different order.

£3.33 a kilo, in trays of about 300 g.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition would need around 1055 grams a day, which works out at about £3.51, assuming 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). The pack's own guide for a dog of 10 to 20 kg runs from 750 to 1200 grams a day.