Orlando Gourmet Pate Cartons: Chicken Pate with Vegetables review

Our Good band is where both cartons finish. The adult wet shelf is a strong one and its middle reaches our Excellent band, so this is a step behind that middle rather than a stumble. Two things account for the gap. The lists are short in a way that leaves most of each carton undescribed, and the recipes are very dilute. Moisture is declared at 85.3% and 84.3%, and energy is estimated at 57 and 61 kcal per 100g where 97 is typical of adult wet food. What is declared reads well: nutritional balance and transparency both come out Outstanding, with protein and processing Average. The protein conversion is one of the stronger ones you will find in a tray or carton.

Ingredients, as declared: 40% Chicken, 2% Peas, 2% Carrots.

Both cartons are chicken first, which is worth pausing on, because one of them is sold as a beef pate. There the chicken is 36% and the beef 4%, with butternut squash and green beans at 2% each behind them. The chicken carton is simpler still: chicken at 40%, then peas and carrots at 2% each.

The lists stop there. Every entry printed carries a percentage. Few wet labels go that far. Between them, though, they account for well under half of each carton, and the water, the minerals and anything else that goes in are not written down. If you are working to exclude a specific ingredient, that is worth knowing.

The analysis rewards the chicken. Protein converts to 46.9% of dry matter in the beef carton and 44.6% in the chicken, both strong readings, while fat stays moderate at 24.5% and 24.2%. Carbohydrate is barely present, estimated at 4.2% and 7.0% of dry matter against a 15.8% typical, which fits a recipe with no cereal and only a token of vegetables.

Ash converts to 15.6% and 15.9% of dry matter, a touch on the high side. That usually points to a mineral rich recipe, or to a fair amount of bone in what the animal content brings. Crude fibre at 8.8% and 8.3% of dry matter is similarly generous for a pate, and both help explain why these cartons feel filling for the calories they carry.

The added panel is dosed entry by entry, with vitamins A and E and then copper, iron, manganese, zinc and iodine each printed per kilo. The two cartons carry noticeably different vitamin A figures, so the panels have been set recipe by recipe.

The simpler carton: chicken at 40% with peas and carrots at 2% each and nothing further named. Chicken is the only animal on the list. That makes it worth considering when poultry alone is what suits your dog best, though the unlisted remainder means it cannot stand as a strict elimination diet. Estimated energy is 61 kcal per 100g.

Sold in 375g cartons.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition would eat roughly 1476 grams a day of the beef pate or roughly 1384 grams of the chicken. That assumes about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate), and works from our estimated energy figures. That is close to four cartons a day, which is what a recipe this wet and this light asks for. Plenty of owners pair a pate like this with a dry food.