Orygo Adult Pate: Salmon with Blueberries review

Wet is a strong shelf for us and the typical adult wet food already reaches our Excellent band, so a band clear of that is not handed out lightly. What lifts these four cans clear of that middle mark is the most direct route a wet food has: a very high declared animal share. Every animal carries its own percentage on the label, and the list holds almost nothing beyond meat and a small amount of plant material. Nutritional balance and transparency read Outstanding on every can, and protein and processing reads Excellent on all four. There is a whisker between the four, and no can here is the weak one.

Ingredients, as declared: 85% Fresh Fish (47% Fresh Salmon, 38% Fresh White Fish), 5% Fresh Chicken Liver, 4% Blueberries, Tapioca, Beet Fibre, Orygoformula 2.6% (Products Resulting from Yeast Fermentation, S. Cerevisiae, Turmeric Longa, Olive Oil, Inulin, Chicory Pulp, Sage, Quinoa, Mint, Fennel, Yucca Mojave, Rosemary, Oregano, Thyme, Valerian, Cranberry Extract, Pomegranate Extract, Milk Thistle, Liquorice, Aloe Vera Without Aloin, Extract Artichoke, Prooil, Egg Membrane, Trout Oil 500 mg/kg).

Fresh meat in a wet food usually means muscle meat together with the organs and connective tissue that come off the same carcass. That is nutritious, highly palatable and entirely natural for a dog, even if the phrase suggests something tidier than it is. What Orygo does differently is open the block up. On the chicken can you get fresh chicken meat at 55%, fresh pork at 30% and chicken liver at 5%, and the other recipes follow the same pattern with different animals in the slots. The pork can is the one loose thread, listing its liver without a species and without a percentage.

Liver earns its place at that 5% mark. For vitamin A, B12, copper and selenium, few natural foods a dog can eat are denser. It digests easily, dogs adore it, and that is why so many good wet recipes tuck a little in behind the muscle meat.

The plant side is deliberately thin. Each can carries a single vegetable or fruit at 4%, then tapioca and beet fibre. Starch is nearly all that tapioca brings, so in quantity it is a poor ingredient. Very little of it is here, though: estimated carbohydrate converts to between 1.9% and 10.9% of dry matter against 15.8% for the typical adult wet food. Beet fibre is there for the gut, not for the calories.

More than twenty entries sit inside a single 2.6% declaration, the blend the maker calls Orygoformula. Trout oil at 500 mg/kg and egg membrane are in there, along with yeast fermentation products, quinoa, inulin, chicory pulp, turmeric and olive oil. So are milk thistle, artichoke, aloe vera, extracts of cranberry and pomegranate, and a herb garden of sage, mint, fennel, rosemary, oregano and thyme. At that share it is a garnish rather than a mechanism, and it is not the reason to choose the food. One useful note for anyone reading labels closely: milk thistle is a flowering plant, not anything from milk, so there is no dairy anywhere on these cans.

The analysis backs the ingredient list up. Protein converts to between 44.4% and 48.8% of dry matter and fat to between 37.5% and 41.3%. That is a properly meat led profile. The energy figures of 145 to 154 kcal per 100g are well above the 97 typical of adult wet food. A dense can is easier on a small dog's stomach and harder on a dog watching his waistline, so let condition steer the portion.

The fish recipe, built from fresh salmon at 47% and fresh white fish at 38% for an 85% fish block, with chicken liver at 5% and blueberries at 4%. The white fish is left without a species, and the chicken liver stops this being a fish only can. Both are worth knowing if you are avoiding a particular animal.

Every recipe is sold in a 400g can. No per-kilo figure had been recorded for the range when we checked, so none is quoted here.

For portioning, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition needs roughly 547 to 580 grams a day depending on the recipe. That is worked from the standard maintenance estimate of about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75). That is a little under a can and a half.