Natures Deli Grain Free Adult Wet Food: Salmon & White Fish review

Three of the trays finish in our Outstanding band and the fish tray follows a step behind in our Excellent band, with protein and processing reading Excellent and transparency Outstanding right across the four. That comes from the construction, with no single flourish behind it. Better than seven tenths of the tray is named animal, the vegetables are printed twice over so you can see what they weigh dried and fresh, and there is no cereal to argue about. Wet food generally does well with us and the typical tray belongs to our Excellent band, which these four either match or clear.

Ingredients, as declared: Salmon (36%), White Fish (35%), Dried Sweet Potato (1%, equivalent to 4% Sweet Potato), Dried Carrot (0.5%, equivalent to 4% Carrot), Dried Peas (0.3%, equivalent to 1% Peas), Minerals, Dried Broccoli (0.2%, equivalent to 2% Broccoli), Dried Mixed Herbs, Sunflower Oil (0.1%), Prebiotic Mannan-Oligosaccharides (0.1%), Chicory Root Extract (0.1%), Dried Seaweed (0.06%), Yucca Extract (0.02%), Cranberry Extract (0.02%), Yeast Extract (0.01%).

The animal share is the headline and it holds up. Chicken takes 72% of its tray on its own and turkey 71% of its own. The duck tray runs duck at 40% with chicken at 31%, and the fish tray splits salmon at 36% with white fish at 35%. Protein converts to between 32.0% and 38.5% of dry matter and fat to between 31.5% and 34.6%. Set against the rest of the wet shelf, these are rich trays.

What is left is a short list of small things, and the label is unusually careful with it. The label puts dried sweet potato at 1% against 4% sweet potato, dried carrot at 0.5% against 4% carrot, dried peas at 0.3% against 1% peas and dried broccoli at 0.2% against 2% broccoli. You can read the recipe either way round. No carbohydrate figure is declared, so ours is an estimate: between 13.5% and 22.2% of dry matter depending on the tray, where the typical adult wet food runs at 15.8%.

The tail of the list is genuinely a tail. Sunflower oil at 0.1%, prebiotic mannan-oligosaccharides at 0.1%, chicory root extract at 0.1% and dried seaweed at 0.06% come first, then yucca, cranberry and yeast extract at 0.02% and below. The prebiotics are the ones doing recognisable work, feeding the gut's own bacteria, and the rest are seasoning at these levels. You would not buy the tray for any of that, and with this meat share you do not have to.

One entry stays vague where the others are precise. Dried mixed herbs could be almost any leaf. A blend written that way can change from batch to batch with the label unchanged. It is present in a very small amount, so for most dogs it is a detail rather than a decision, but on a label this exact it stands out. The minerals are likewise declared as a nutritional additive group rather than as a list of doses.

Salmon at 36% with white fish at 35%, an almost even split and the only fish tray in the range. It is the leanest on protein at 32.0% of dry matter and carries the most carbohydrate at an estimated 22.0%, with energy at an estimated 115 kcal per 100g.

Sold in a 395g tray.

We have no per-kilo figure to quote for this range. On portions, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition would eat roughly 660 to 729 grams a day depending on the recipe, assuming about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). Those figures work from our own energy estimate, since the trays do not declare a calorie figure of their own.