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

Our Excellent band is where it lands, earned by a combination rarer than it sounds. The recipe puts one animal at 66%, protein at 51.0% of dry matter and estimated carbohydrate of 9.0%, where adult wet food typically carries 15.8%. The category median reaches Excellent as well, a fair reflection of how competitive the wet shelf has become. What sets this paté apart in that company is the discipline of the list. Nutritional balance and transparency both read Outstanding, with protein and processing Good and value Excellent, and the unnamed broth and the missing energy declaration are the two things keeping the label from telling you everything.

Ingredients, as declared: Chicken* (66%) (including meat 15%), carrots* (2%), peas* (2%), minerals, dehydrated vegetal broth, salmon oil. *Natural ingredients.

The 66% chicken deserves a proper look, because the label itself does the honest thing and breaks it open. Chicken meat is 15% of the paté, and the balance of that 66% is other parts of the same bird. That is normal in wet food and not a mark against it, since organ and connective tissue carry nutrition that muscle meat does not. It does mean the headline figure and the meat figure are describing different things. Protein comes out at 51.0% of dry matter, the strongest reading in the brand's paté line.

One land animal, then, which is exactly the point. Monoprotein deserves a precise reading here. Chicken is the only bird or mammal on the label, but the list ends with salmon oil. A dog being taken off fish as well as off other meats is not covered. For a dog you are narrowing onto poultry, the label does what you need it to.

The plant side barely exists. The only named vegetables are carrots at 2% and peas at 2%, both of them whole and unrefined. Estimated carbohydrate lands at 9.0% of dry matter. The one entry keeping its cards close is the dehydrated vegetal broth. A broad vegetable term can cover a wide spread of things, and what goes in may change from batch to batch even though the wording does not. It is doing a small job in a paté that is otherwise very well specified.

The added panel is printed with the same care as the rest of the range, giving both the compound and the element it delivers. Zinc sulphate at 68.6 mg brings 25 mg of zinc, and manganous sulphate at 4.31 mg brings 1.4 mg of manganese. Copper sulphate at 3.9 mg brings 1 mg of copper and calcium iodate at 2.3 mg brings 0.75 mg of iodine, with vitamin D3 at 200 IU and vitamin E at 20 mg alongside.

Moisture is declared at 80.0%, higher than the brand's multi-meat paté, and the estimated energy of 86 kcal per 100g follows from that. A lighter food means bigger servings. That suits a dog who likes a full bowl, and it asks a little more of the storage cupboard.

£6.44 a kilo, in a single 0.3 kg size.

As a guide, feeding works out at around £6.28 a day for a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition, or roughly 974 grams. Behind it is about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). The label's own guide is far lighter, at 130 grams a day for a 10kg dog. That does not add up as a whole diet on a food of this energy, so the estimate above is the safer place to start.