Rocco Classic Trio di Carne: Beef with Chicken & Veal review

Our Excellent band is where all three of these tins come to rest, and they arrive together. The wet shelf scores well overall, with the typical adult recipe carrying our Excellent band, and this trio sits level with that mark. Protein and processing reads Excellent, transparency does the same, and nutritional balance goes higher still into Outstanding. Around seven tenths of the tin is animal, the offal is itemised, and the analysis is published in full.

Ingredients, as declared: Beef, Lamb & Poultry, 40% beef (heart, meat, liver, lung, tripe), 29% meat stock, 15% lamb (heart, meat, liver, lung, tripe), 15% poultry (heart, meat, liver, gizzards, neck), 1% minerals, Beef, Chicken & Veal, 40% beef (heart, meat, liver, lung, tripe), 29% meat stock, 15% chicken (heart, meat, liver, gizzards, neck), 15% veal (tripe, heart, lung, 1% minerals, Beef, Chicken & Game, 40% beef (heart, meat, liver, lung, tripe), 29% meat stock, 15% chicken (heart, meat, liver, gizzards, neck), 15% game, 1% minerals

Beef leads every tin at 40%, listed as heart, meat, liver, lung and tripe, so you get a genuine mix of muscle and organ rather than one quietly standing in for the other. Tripe is stomach lining from a grazing animal, and it is nutritious stuff. Dogs that turn their noses up at everything else are famously keen on it.

Two more animals follow at 15% each, and they are what separates the three tins. Chicken and lamb are both named down to the parts used, heart, meat and liver among them. Poultry and game are not: each is a category term, and neither tells you which bird or which animal went in this time.

Meat stock at 29% is the liquid, and it is the third entry on the label with no species behind it. On a recipe that is otherwise this specific, those three vague lines stand out.

That is the whole thing apart from 1% minerals. No oil, no starch, no vegetable, no flavouring. Protein converts to between 45.0% and 47.0% of dry matter and fat to between 27.0% and 33.3%, a rich and meaty reading by wet food standards. The carbohydrate estimate sits between 9.6% and 12.1% of dry matter, where the typical adult wet food runs at 15.8%.

The added panel gives vitamin D3 at 200 IU, vitamin E at 20 IU, zinc at 25mg, manganese at 1.4mg and biotin at 300mcg. Biotin feeds skin and coat and carries a printed figure here, though there is no copper or iodine in the panel, which is short for a food meant to be fed on its own.

Chicken and veal at 15% each, the veal listed as tripe, heart and lung. Veal is young beef, so this tin holds two entries a beef-sensitive dog would react to. Fat converts to 33.3% of dry matter, the richest reading in the range alongside the lamb and poultry tin.

£2.86 a kilo. The tins are 400g and 800g, and they come in packs of 6 and 24.

A 15kg adult dog in moderate condition works out at about £1.99 to £2.00 a day, or roughly 694 to 700 grams, assuming about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate).