Morrisons Pate Multi-Pack review

Our reading of this pack comes out in our Good band, and the pillars split in a way worth understanding. Protein and processing reads Good and nutritional balance Outstanding, a strong showing for a pâté made largely of category terms. The analysis backs it up: protein at 47.4% of dry matter, fat at 26.3% and carbohydrate estimated at 13.2%, comfortably under the 15.8% wet foods typically carry. Transparency reads Good rather than better, and the reason is easy to see. Three of the four working ingredients are open-ended terms, so there is almost nothing on the label a buyer can check. The typical adult wet food reaches our Excellent band, and the step between that and this pack is a step in declaration far more than in dinner.

Ingredients, as declared: Adult Dog Smooth Pâté With Beef - Meat and Animal Derivatives (60%, including 4% Beef), Minerals, Oils and Fats (0.2% Fish Oil), Various Sugars, Derivatives of Vegetable origin (0.1% Chicory), Adult Dog Smooth Pâté With Chicken - Meat and Animal Derivatives (60%, including 4% Chicken), Minerals, Oils and Fats (0.2% Fish Oil), Various Sugars, Derivatives of Vegetable origin (0.1% Chicory), Adult Dog Smooth Pâté With Lamb - Meat and Animal Derivatives (60%, including 4% Lamb), Minerals, Oils and Fats (0.2% Fish Oil), Various Sugars, Derivatives of Vegetable origin (0.1% Chicory)

Sixty per cent of each pâté is declared as meat and animal derivatives, which is a high figure for animal content and, at the same time, a figure you cannot do very much with. The term takes in the fleshy parts and processing products of any slaughtered warm-blooded land animal. That covers plenty of perfectly good material and some very ordinary material, with no way to tell them apart from the pack. The one fixed point is the 4% of named meat that gives each pâté its name: beef in the first, chicken in the second, lamb in the third.

Oils and fats is the next open term, with the 0.2% fish oil named inside it and the balance unstated. Omega-3 comes with fish oil, and any label is better for having it. Here it accounts for only a small share of the fat, and what fills out the rest is left unsaid.

Derivatives of vegetable origin covers the plant side, with chicory at 0.1% named within it as a source of inulin, a prebiotic fibre. Various sugars are declared as well, sitting near the end of the list. They are there because dogs like them, and the recipe does not need them.

What the analysis shows is genuinely decent. Protein converts to 47.4% of dry matter and fat to 26.3%. The estimated carbohydrate of 13.2% comes in below what the wet shelf typically runs. As a bowl of food this is meat-led. Energy works out at an estimated 83 kcal per 100g, a shade under the 97 kcal typical of adult wet food.

The pack does not print an added vitamin and trace element panel beside the recipe, so the minerals entry has to be taken on trust along with the rest of it. Feeding one of these means trusting the maker, because the label gives you very little to read. For a dog that eats it happily and does well on it, that is a perfectly reasonable decision to make.

£3.03 a kilo, in a pack holding about 1.8 kg across the three flavours.

A 15kg adult dog in moderate condition would eat roughly 1014 grams a day, coming to around £3.07, on the standard assumption of 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75). The pack's own guide gives 750 to 1050 grams a day for a dog of 10 to 20 kg.