Pets at Home Complete Nutrition Meaty Selection in Jelly: With Chicken in Jelly review

All three tins carry the same recipe and the same placement, which is our Average band, while the typical adult wet food sits up in Excellent. Reading across our pillars, transparency comes out Outstanding, nutritional balance comes out Good and protein and processing Average, and that spread describes the food fairly.

There is nothing wrong with the analysis for an everyday tin. What there is not is much to read: a list of four entries, three of them legal category terms, keeps the named meat share slim. That is a judgement about how much meat the tin declares rather than a safety one, and the two are worth keeping apart when you decide.

Ingredients, as declared: With Chicken in Jelly: Meat and Animal Derivatives (32%, including 4% Chicken), Cereals, Minerals, Various Sugars. With Turkey in Jelly: Meat and Animal Derivatives (32%, including 4% Turkey), Cereals, Minerals, Various Sugars. With Beef in Jelly: Meat and Animal Derivatives (32%, including 4% Beef), Cereals, Minerals, Various Sugars.

The animal block is declared at 32%, with 4% of it named as chicken, turkey or beef. Putting a figure on the block is genuinely useful, since many tins in this style do not. What stays out of view is the composition of the rest, which can be any warm blooded land animal and can be varied without the wording moving an inch.

Cereals follows, again with no grain attached, and the carbohydrate estimate reflects it at 37.9% of dry matter where the typical adult wet food runs at 15.8%. The rest of the analysis is gentle, with protein converting to 32.4% of dry matter and fat to 16.2%. A dog who finds richer wet food heavy going will get on with that balance.

The jelly is set by cassia gum, declared at 2800 mg per kilo. It is made from senna seed and is used widely across wet pet food for exactly that job. Many makers never name their thickener at all, so printing it with a dose beside it counts for something.

Various sugars is the last of the four and goes in for taste, without naming its source. The added panel that follows is short and fully dosed: vitamin D3 at 150 IU, vitamin E at 15 mg, and iron, iodine, manganese, zinc and copper each with a figure per kilo. Calcium converts to 1.08% of dry matter, a sound level for an adult dog.

Chicken takes the 4% slot here. No meat in the aisle is more familiar. That is why dogs take to it so readily, and also why it appears so often in a dog's intolerance history.

£1.41 a kilo, in 400g tins sold in a case of 6.

On the energy estimate, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition eats around 1120 grams a day, which comes to £1.58, assuming about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). The label's table puts a 25kg to 45kg dog on 1400 to 2200 grams a day.