Nature's Variety Paté Adult Mini: Chicken review

Our Excellent band is where this lands, on an analysis that reads like meat and not like filler. Half the dry matter is protein, and the estimated carbohydrate stops at 6.8% where adult wet food typically climbs to 15.8%. The category median also reaches Excellent, so this paté sits inside that band with it and does not pull clear. The one gap sits on the pack instead of in the bowl, since the maker prints figures for its three meats and its inulin but leaves the energy value off entirely. Two readings come in at Outstanding, nutritional balance and transparency. Value is Excellent and protein and processing Good.

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

Chicken at 40%, pork at 20% and beef at 5% add up to 65% animal content, all named, all quantified. For a small dog that is a useful construction, because a little bowl has to carry a lot of nutrition and there is very little in here that is not doing a job. Protein converts to 50.0% of dry matter and fat to 29.5%, so the calories arrive mostly from the meat.

Pork is the entry worth pausing on. Chicken and beef turn up in dog food far more often than pork does, so pork is a fresh protein for plenty of dogs. It also happens to be one of the more palatable meats going. Beef at 5% is a flavour note more than a nutritional one. The largest share is still chicken, and a dog with a chicken problem will find no way around that here.

The plant side is peas at 2% and carrots at 2%, both whole, with no refining into flours or protein extracts. That is the version worth having. The prebiotic is inulin at 0.2%, a soluble fibre from chicory. Friendly bacteria further down the gut feed on it. Estimated carbohydrate settles at 6.8% of dry matter, so none of this is bulk.

The mineral panel is printed with unusual care. Each trace element appears as the compound used and then again as the amount of the element it delivers. Zinc sulphate at 54.9 mg is shown as 20 mg of zinc, and 9 mg of copper sulphate as 2.3 mg of copper, with manganese and iodine handled the same way. Vitamin D3 at 140 IU and vitamin E at 30 mg complete it.

Moisture is declared at 78.0%, which is what wet food is for, and the analysis is otherwise unremarkable in the best sense. The one gap is energy, which the label does not give, so both the maker's guidance and ours rest on estimates, with no printed figure to work from.

£7.32 a kilo, in a single 0.2 kg size.

As a guide, feeding works out at around £6.21 a day for a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition, or roughly 848 grams. Our basis is about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That reference dog is much bigger than the one this pack is aimed at, so a small dog will eat a fraction of it. The estimate itself leans on our own energy figure, because the pack does not print one.