Nutriment Senior Gently Steamed review

This tray comes to rest in our Excellent band, level with where the typical adult wet food finishes, which is already respectable company. Protein and processing carries the weight here, reading Excellent on the strength of three named species and named organ meats, with nutritional balance and transparency a step higher again at Outstanding and value at Excellent. Protein converts to 37.5% of dry matter and fat to 29.2%, a moderate mix that suits a dog no longer burning what they once did.

Worth saying plainly: nothing about the placement rests on the joint ingredients. They are a welcome addition, but the band comes from the meat share, the naming and the analysis.

Ingredients, as declared: Turkey (31%), Salmon (19%), Beef (18% including Beef Heart 7%, Beef Liver 7%, Beef Kidney 4%), Pumpkin (1%), Minerals, Dried Broccoli (0.5% equivalent to 4%), Blueberry (0.5%), Minerals, Salmon Oil, Green Lipped Mussel, Chicory (0.01%), Glucosamine, Chondroitin.

The animal content comes from three named species, each with its own printed figure. Turkey at 31% is lean and easily digested, and it turns up often in food written for older dogs. Salmon at 19% brings oily fish protein with it. The beef share at 18% is all organ meat: 7% heart, 7% liver and 4% kidney.

The joint support is the reason to choose this over the brand's adult trays. Green lipped mussel, glucosamine and chondroitin all appear, none of them with a printed amount. That puts them in the territory of a useful addition, not a therapeutic dose. The mussel at least arrives as a whole ingredient rather than an isolate, so it brings the rest of the shellfish along with it.

The plant side is small and declared: pumpkin at 1%, dried broccoli at 0.5% with its fresh equivalent given, and blueberry at 0.5%, with chicory at 0.01% as a prebiotic. Carbohydrate converts to an estimated 20.8% of dry matter, a little above the 15.8% typical of adult wet food, which for a tray this meat led is a modest difference.

Vitamins and trace elements are printed with doses throughout, and cassia gum closes the panel as the agent that sets the tray. Minerals appear twice on the ingredient list, which reads like a printing slip.

£5.85 a kilo, in a 395g tray.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition would eat around 774 grams a day, working out at roughly £4.53, assuming about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate).