Naturo Adult Grain & Gluten Free Cans: Salmon with Chicken review

Every can here settles in our Good band. Adult wet is a strong shelf and its midpoint reaches into Excellent, so these tins finish a step under it. The reasons are steady ones, nothing dramatic. Half of each can is named meat, where the strongest wet recipes declare more. Protein lands between 31.8% and 45.0% of dry matter depending which animal you pick, and the mineral content reads high on the analysis. Transparency returns Outstanding on all six recipes and nutritional balance does the same on five of them, while protein and processing sits at Average across the range and value reads Good on every can. For an everyday tin fed to a mixed household, that consistency is worth something in itself.

Ingredients, as declared: Salmon 26%, Chicken 24%, Fruit and Vegetables 8% (from 1% Dried Carrots, Blueberries and Potato), Minerals, Sunflower Oil 0.13%, Flaxseed Oil 0.06%, Salmon Oil 0.06%, Dried Kelp 0.06%, Dried Chicory Root 0.04%, Yeast 0.04%, Dried Basil 0.016%, Dried Nettle 0.01%, Yucca Powder 0.01%, Dried Rosehip 0.006%, Glucosamine 0.005%, Chondroitin Sulphate 0.0025%, Dried Marigold 0.002%, Pomegranate Extract 0.002%

Half of every can is named animal, and the label is straight about how it gets there. The single-animal recipes declare chicken, duck or turkey at 50%, and the paired ones split it 26% and 24% between two named meats. At no point are you left guessing which animal you are feeding or how much of it there is.

Fruit and vegetables come in at 8%, rehydrated from 1% dried. The range uses two different mixes: dried carrots, blueberries and potato on the paired recipes, dried mixed peppers, peas and sweet potato on the singles. Estimated carbohydrate runs between 8.5% and 19.1% of dry matter across the six, against 15.8% for the typical adult wet food, so most of the range sits at or under the norm.

Three oils are named and weighed: sunflower at 0.13%, flaxseed at 0.06% and salmon at 0.06%. Vitamin E comes along with the sunflower oil, one of the better plant oils, while flaxseed and salmon oil are both there for omega-3 fats. They are small amounts, but naming and weighing them is more than many wet labels bother with, and it does mean fish is in every can.

After that comes a long tail of extras, all of them tiny and all of them weighed: dried kelp, chicory root, yeast, basil, nettle, yucca powder, rosehip, marigold and pomegranate extract. Kelp is a natural source of iodine. The chicory root supplies inulin, a soluble fibre that the gut's useful bacteria live on. Glucosamine and chondroitin close the list, and at 0.005% and 0.0025% they are best read as a small courtesy to an older dog rather than a joint programme in a tin.

The analysis is honest and unspectacular. Protein converts to between 31.8% and 45.0% of dry matter and fat to between 25.0% and 30.0%, both perfectly sound for adult maintenance. Crude ash is the reading that stands out, at between 16.8% and 20.0% of dry matter. That runs high for a wet food and usually points to bone and mineral content in the meat used.

The added vitamin and mineral panel is printed with doses on every can, running through vitamin A, vitamin E, zinc, iron, copper and manganese, with vitamin D3 on most of them. The beef can lists no copper and the salmon can lists no vitamin D3, which is the kind of variation worth checking if one of these tins is your dog's whole diet.

Salmon at 26% with chicken at 24%. The richest can here at 98 kcal per 100g, with the highest estimated carbohydrate at 19.1% of dry matter, and the only panel in the range without vitamin D3.

£3.59 a kilo, in 390g cans sold in packs of 12.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition works out at between £3.08 and £3.68 a day depending on the recipe, which is roughly 857 to 1024 grams. That uses about 840 kcal a day for maintenance from 110 × bodyweight^0.75.

The label's own feeding row cannot be used: it reads 5000 grams a day for a 5kg dog, which is not a workable amount, so the figures above come from energy alone.