Rocco Menu Trays: Beef, Lamb, Vegetables & Rice review

Both trays finish in our Excellent band together, which is not a common outcome on a wet page. The typical adult wet food belongs to our Excellent band as well, so no low bar is being cleared here. These trays sit right on the middle of a category that is already strong. What earns it is simple enough. The animal content is high and itemised down to the cut, the starch is small and named with percentages, and there is very little on the label left for an owner to guess at.

Ingredients, as declared: 60% beef (heart, meat, liver, lung, tripe) 27.8% stock, 4% carrots, 4% rice, 3% peas, 1% minerals, 0.2 % linseed oil, 30% beef (heart, meat, liver, lung, tripe) 30% poultry (heart, meat, liver, gizzards, neck), 27.8% stock, 4% carrots, 4% rice, 3% peas, 1% minerals, 0.2 % linseed oil, 30% beef (heart, meat, liver, lung, tripe) 30% lamb (heart, meat, liver, tripe, lung), 27.8% stock, 4% carrots, 4% rice, 3% peas, 1% minerals, 0.2 % linseed oi

The animal content is the whole story, and it is written out properly. Sixty per cent of each tray is meat, and Rocco names the parts rather than hiding behind a category word: heart, meat, liver, lung and tripe. Nothing else in the tray carries the nutrition liver does. Tripe has a reputation for being easy on the stomach and for going down well, and heart is dense muscle meat. This is offal led feeding of the old fashioned sort.

Stock makes up 27.8%, and that is the moisture a wet food is built on. Rocco prints a percentage for it, and plenty of makers do not. The stock is not tied to a particular animal, though.

The plant side is deliberately small: carrots at 4%, rice at 4% and peas at 3%, each with its figure printed. Carbohydrate converts to an estimated 18.8% of dry matter in the beef and lamb tray and 14.0% in the beef, one either side of the 15.8% typical of adult wet food. At that level the starch is binding the tray, not bulking it out.

Linseed oil closes the list at 0.2%, a small but real source of omega 3, with 1% minerals covering the macro side. The list of added vitamins and trace elements is short, and every one of them is dosed. Per kilo that is vitamin D3 at 200 IU, vitamin E at 30mg, zinc at 15mg, manganese at 3mg and iodine at 0.75mg, with biotin listed as well. Meat this heavy in the mix brings a good deal of micronutrition with it, so a short panel on a label like this reads as confidence.

The animal share splits evenly here, 30% beef and 30% lamb, and the cut list on each runs heart, meat, liver, lung and tripe. It is the higher of the two on protein at 43.2% of dry matter and the leaner on fat at 27.2%. At 119 kcal per 100g it is also the more energy dense tray of the pair.

£3.02 a kilo for both trays, sold as 300g trays in packs of 9 and 27.

Rocco's own guide puts a 20kg dog on 915 grams a day. A 15kg adult dog in moderate condition needs about 840 kcal a day on our energy based estimate (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That is roughly 706 grams of the beef and lamb tray, £2.13 a day, or 737 grams of the beef tray, £2.23.