Natures Deli Adult Wet Food: Chicken review

All four trays finish inside our Excellent band. The salmon and the turkey come in a shade ahead of the chicken and of the lamb pairing. Wet food scores well on our system as a rule, so a placing in this band puts the range in the thick of the category rather than clear of it. What earns it is straightforward enough: a named meat at 60%, every other ingredient printed with a figure, and a protein conversion at the strong end for food sold in a tray. Itemised minerals and a declared energy figure are the two things that would carry it further.

Ingredients, as declared: Chicken (60%)*, Carrots (4%)*, Brown Rice (4%)*, Dried Peas (1% Dried Peas, Equivalent to 4% Peas)*, Minerals, Chicory Root (a source of Prebiotic FOS, 0.2%)*, Sage (0.1%)*.

Each tray leads with its animal at 60%, either as one entry or as two split evenly, so nothing about the meat share is left to inference. The analysis is genuinely meat-led: protein converts to between 40.0% and 44.0% of dry matter, fat to between 30.0% and 40.0%. That is a good deal richer than a wet tray usually reads.

The plant side is small and unusually well explained. Carrots go in at 4% and brown rice at 4%. Peas are declared at 1% dried, and the label puts that at 4% fresh, more arithmetic than most makers bother to print. We estimate carbohydrate, since no figure is declared, and it converts to between 6.0% and 12.0% of dry matter, below the 15.8% typical of adult wet food.

Chicory root comes in at 0.2%, a small but real amount of prebiotic fibre. Ingredients like that feed the gut's own bacteria, not the dog. The herb on each tray, sage, rosemary or parsley at 0.1%, is seasoning more than supplement. Where rosemary is the one used, it also works as a natural antioxidant.

The one thing these labels keep to themselves is the mineral addition, printed as the single word minerals with no figures beneath it. Wet labels are commonly written that way, and it raises no safety question at all. The trace elements are simply the part of this tray you take on trust, while everything above them is spelled out.

Chicken at 60% with sage as the herb, and the joint highest protein conversion in the range at 44.0% of dry matter. Energy is an estimated 113 kcal per 100g.

£3.98 a kilo, in 400g trays, with the same figure across all four recipes.

As a guide, feeding a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition works out at between £2.67 and £2.96 a day, or roughly 671 to 745 grams. Behind those figures sits an allowance of about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). Those portions come off an energy estimate of ours, since the trays print no calorie figure.