Optimum Pet Health Adult Trays review

This tray reaches our Excellent band and gets there from a slightly different direction than most. The animal share is high, the starch is minimal with carbohydrate estimated at 8.0% of dry matter, and the fat is generous at 36.0%. The typical tin reaches that same band, because adult wet is a strong category, so this tray is competing near the top of a good field rather than standing out from a weak one. Outstanding is the reading for nutritional balance and transparency, while protein and processing lands at Excellent alongside value. The tray finishes a shade in front of the brand's cans.

Ingredients, as declared: 68444back.jpg (68444_04, single 395g tray)): Chicken (65%), Dried Peas, Dried Carrot, Dried Plasma (1%), Minerals, Yeast Extract (0.3%), Salmon Oil (0.1%), Prebiotic MOS (0.1% including beta glucans 0.03%), Prebiotic Chicory (0.1% including inulin 0.06%), Dried Algae (0.035%, source of omega 3), Marshmallow Root Powder (0.015%), Dried Melon Juice (0.005%, source of superoxide dismutase), Tyndallised Lactobacillus helveticus HA-122 (0.0035%), Tyndallised Lacticaseibacillus paracasei HA-108 (0.0035%).

Chicken at 65% is the foundation, named plainly, and the list uses no category terms at all. Protein converts to 40.0% of dry matter and fat to 36.0%, a rich analysis that explains where the 121 kcal per 100g comes from.

Dried peas and dried carrot are the only plant bulk and there is very little of either. Carbohydrate is estimated at 8.0% of dry matter where the typical adult wet food sits at 15.8%. Peas bring fibre and a little protein with them and carrot brings vitamin A, but neither is present in a quantity that changes the character of the tray.

Dried plasma at 1% is the entry to know about. Plasma is the liquid fraction of blood, dried to a powder, and it is used as a concentrated and highly digestible protein source. No animal is named against it on the label, and that matters if you are excluding one species precisely.

For a wet food, the end of the list is unusually busy and unusually well declared. Prebiotic MOS at 0.1% has its beta glucans printed at 0.03%, and chicory at 0.1% has the inulin inside it given as 0.06%. Then come dried algae at 0.035% for omega 3, marshmallow root at 0.015%, dried melon juice at 0.005% and two tyndallised bacterial strains at 0.0035% each. Every one of them carries a figure, which is more openness than most labels offer at that end of a list.

The label prints no vitamin and trace element panel. Minerals are in the list, so the tray is supplemented, but there are no doses to read, and on a label this forthcoming everywhere else that absence stands out.

£4.22 a kilo, in a 395g tray sold singly and in a 12 tray multipack.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition would eat around 694 grams a day, working out at roughly £2.93, assuming about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That is under two trays a day.