Nature's Variety Paté Adult Medium / Maxi: Chicken review

The band here is Excellent, and the analysis is what puts it there, not the length of the list. Protein at 50.0% of dry matter and estimated carbohydrate at 6.8%, against the 15.8% adult wet food typically carries, describe a paté made mostly of animal. Adult wet food reaches the same band as a category, and this recipe sits inside that band without topping it. The label prints percentages for its three meats but leaves the energy value and the make-up of the mineral mix unstated. The pillars split: Outstanding for nutritional balance and transparency, Excellent for value and Good for protein and processing.

Ingredients, as declared: Chicken* (40%), pork* (20%), beef* (5%), peas* (2%), carrots* (2%), minerals, salmon oil*, inulin* (0.2%). *Natural ingredients.

Animal content comes to 65% of the paté, and every part of it carries a figure: chicken at 40%, pork at 20% and beef at 5%. That last pair is what makes this recipe interesting. Pork turns up so rarely in dog food that many dogs will not have met it. Beef in a small supporting role adds flavour without dominating the analysis. Protein comes out at 50.0% of dry matter, which is towards the strong end for wet food.

The plant side is deliberately slight. Peas at 2% and carrots at 2% are the whole of it, and neither is there to fill the tin. From the peas come fibre and a spread of vitamins, and from the carrots beta-carotene and soluble fibre. Nothing here is bulking the recipe out. Estimated carbohydrate lands at 6.8% of dry matter against the 15.8% adult wet food typically runs at.

Salmon oil supplies the omega oils. Inulin at 0.2% is the prebiotic, and the useful bacteria further along the gut are what it feeds. Both are small entries with a clear purpose. A recipe that has been thought about shows itself that way.

The added panel is unusually well explained. Vitamin D3 at 140 IU and vitamin E at 30 mg lead it. Each trace element is then printed twice, once as the compound and once as the element it actually delivers. Zinc sulphate at 54.9 mg gives 20 mg of zinc and copper sulphate at 9 mg gives 2.3 mg of copper. Manganese oxide at 2.6 mg gives 2 mg of manganese, and calcium iodate at 0.8 mg gives 0.5 mg of iodine. Very few labels take that trouble.

The asterisks running through the composition mark what the maker calls natural ingredients. That is a positioning statement, not a defined term, so read it as an intention. The label gives no energy figure. The portion guidance below is therefore our own working.

£6.44 a kilo, in a single 0.4 kg size.

As a guide, feeding works out at around £5.46 a day for a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition. That is roughly 848 grams, on about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). The pack carries no declared energy figure, so that portion rests on our estimate of 99 kcal per 100g. Treat that as your opening figure and tune it to the dog you have.