Orlando Pate Trays: With Turkey, Game & Vegetables review

The four trays all come out in our Average band, with the lamb and the turkey recipes a whisker ahead of the beef and the chicken. The gap between them is small enough to set aside. Higher up, in our Excellent band, sits the middle of the adult wet shelf, and the distance to it comes almost entirely from the label. Meat and animal derivatives and vegetables carry most of each tray, with only 4% shares pinned inside them. Nutritional balance reads Outstanding on all four and transparency Good, with protein and processing Good on three of them and Average on the chicken and ham. The analysis itself is decent, with protein at around half of dry matter and carbohydrate low throughout.

Ingredients, as declared: Meat and Animal Derivatives (Including 4% Turkey, 4% Game), Vegetables (Including 4% Carrots and Peas), Minerals.

All four trays follow the same construction. A meat and animal derivatives entry carries the animal content, and inside it two meats are pinned at 4% each. A vegetables entry carries the plant side, with carrots or peas pinned inside at 4%. Minerals close the list, and the beef tray adds various sugars.

The category terms are the honest weakness. Meat and animal derivatives can be any warm blooded land animal in any proportion, and vegetables can be any vegetable or legume. Either one can be different in the next batch, and the label will read exactly the same. The 4% shares are the fixed points, and they are the only ones.

The analysis is better than the list suggests. Protein converts to 50.0% of dry matter in the beef tray, 48.5% in the chicken and turkey trays and 51.5% in the lamb, with fat between 27.3% and 30.3%. Estimated carbohydrate runs from 6.1% to 6.9% of dry matter, well under the 15.8% typical of adult wet food. Whatever else the label holds back, these are lean, meat weighted recipes.

The added panel is identical across the four and every entry is dosed, running through vitamin D3, vitamin E, biotin, zinc, manganese, copper and iodine. Biotin is an unusual thing to see on a wet tray and it is there for skin and coat.

The lamb tray is the only one to name an organ meat, kidney at 4%, and that is a real positive, since organ meats carry vitamins and minerals that muscle meat alone does not. At the other end, the turkey tray names game as its second meat, a description covering several wild species rather than one animal.

Turkey at 4% with game at 4%, and carrots and peas together at 4%. With game left unattached to any one species, this tray does not fully cover a dog with a strict avoidance list. Protein converts to 48.5% of dry matter and fat to 30.3%, with energy estimated at 74 kcal per 100g.

Sold in 150g trays.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition would eat between roughly 1131 and 1198 grams a day depending on the flavour. That assumes about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate) and works from our estimated energy figures. That is around eight trays a day at that weight, so this size suits a small dog fed on wet alone, or a larger dog fed alongside a dry food.