Natures Deli Senior Wet Food review

The tray finishes in our Excellent band, a little ahead of the brand's everyday adult trays and a little behind their grain-free ones. Nutritional balance and transparency both read Outstanding, protein and processing Good, and value sits with the overall at Excellent. Its strengths are easy to point at: a named poultry pair at 30% apiece, a printed figure against each of the three joint supplements, and a carbohydrate conversion well under what wet food usually carries. The typical wet food occupies this band too, so a placing here says the tray does the ordinary things properly without doing anything unusual. For an older dog that is very often the point.

Ingredients, as declared: Turkey (30%)*, Chicken (30%)*, Carrots (4%)*, Brown Rice (3%)*, Dried Peas (1% Dried Peas, Equivalent to 4% Peas)*,Salmon Oil*, Pea Fibre (1%), Minerals, Chicory Root (a source of Prebiotic FOS, 0.2%)*, Sage (0.1%)*, Glucosamine (600mg/ Kg), Chondroitin Sulphate (600mg/Kg), MSM (600mg/Kg).

Turkey at 30% and chicken at 30% make up the animal share, with turkey given first billing. It is the leaner and lower-calorie of the two birds, which is why senior and light recipes reach for it. Protein converts to 42.0% of dry matter, a strong figure for food sold in a tray, while fat stays moderate at 28.0%.

The plant side is small and spelled out. Carrots go in at 4%, brown rice at 3%, and the peas are declared at 1% dried with the label noting that this stands in for 4% fresh peas. Pea fibre adds another 1%, and between them crude fibre converts to 6.0% of dry matter, useful in a recipe meant to keep an older dog comfortable. No carbohydrate figure is printed, so we estimate it at 10.0% of dry matter, below the 15.8% typical of adult wet food.

The joint supplements are the reason to look twice. Glucosamine, chondroitin sulphate and MSM each carry a printed 600mg/kg. Most senior labels name their supplements and leave the amount to the imagination. Printing the dose commits more than the category usually does. Read them as steady support built into dinner rather than as a course of treatment, and let your vet lead if your dog is already being managed for arthritis.

Salmon oil looks after skin and coat. Chicory root at 0.2% brings prebiotic fibre, which feeds the gut's own bacteria and not the dog. Sage at 0.1% is seasoning. The minerals, by contrast, appear as one word with nothing printed beneath them, which is the one part of this tray taken on trust while everything above it is declared.

£3.98 a kilo, in a 400g tray.

As a guide, feeding a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition works out at around £3.18 a day, or roughly 800 grams, assuming about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That rests on our own energy estimate, since the tray does not print a calorie figure of its own.