Omni Sweet Potato & Quinoa Loaf review

Our scoring leans hard on named animal ingredients and how much of the recipe they fill, so a can built entirely from plants starts a long way behind on that measure. That is why this one settles in our Average band while adult wet food as a category typically reaches our Excellent band. The difference is one of kind, not a verdict on the cooking. Protein and processing reads Poor for that reason, while transparency comes back Outstanding and nutritional balance reads Good.

Ingredients, as declared: Dried Peas (6% equivalent to 18% Peas), Sweet Potatoes (15%), Lupin Beans Powder (5%), Quinoa (4.5%), Pea Protein, Minerals, Potato Protein, Rapeseed Oil (1%), Chia Seeds (1%), Coconut Oil (1%), Dried Brewer's Yeast (1%), Dried Seaweed (Ascophyllum Nodosum) (0.1%), Dried Chicory (a natural source of FOS and Inulin) (0.03%)

Peas lead the list, declared at 6% dried and equivalent to 18% whole, which is a fair way to put it since drying takes most of the weight out. Whole peas carry fibre and antioxidants, plus a useful amount of protein. It is still a big share of the can, and worth noticing for what it pushes out.

Sweet potatoes at 15% are the carbohydrate of choice here and a good one, with more fibre and vitamin A than a common potato and a gentler effect on blood sugar. Quinoa at 4.5% is the other half of the idea. Botanically it is a seed, not a cereal, and very few plant foods carry every amino acid a dog needs the way it does.

The refined proteins still do a share of the work. Pea protein, potato protein and lupin beans powder at 5% lift the analysis to 32.7% of dry matter. That figure would look strong on a meat recipe and needs reading more carefully on a plant one, since a dog absorbs less of what is there.

Fat is light at 13.5% of dry matter, drawn from rapeseed oil and coconut oil at 1% each, and chia seeds at 1% bring plant omega 3. Brewer's yeast at 1% and seaweed at 0.1% round the recipe off, the yeast for its B vitamins and the seaweed for iodine.

The added panel is fully dosed and includes the entries that matter most in a meatless bowl: vitamin A, vitamin D3, vitamin E, taurine, methionine and L-carnitine, then the usual trace elements. Dried chicory at 0.03% is in there as a prebiotic rather than for anything you would taste.

£1.60 a kilo, in a 400 g can sold as a 6 pack or a 12 pack.

As a guide, feeding a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition comes to about £1.48 a day, or roughly 923 grams, assuming about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That is a shade over two cans.