Rockster: Duck A La Royale review

All eight recipes reach our Excellent band, and half climb a step higher into Outstanding. That leaves the animal as the thing to choose on. Wet food is one of the stronger categories on our scoring, so the typical adult recipe already reaches that Excellent mark. Rockster holds that line across the range and pushes past it on the strongest labels.

The pillar readings show where that comes from. Protein and processing reads Excellent or better on all eight, transparency does the same, and nutritional balance reaches Outstanding on several. That is what happens when a label prints its cuts and its percentages instead of writing in categories. Value follows the overall reading on every recipe. All eight come back Excellent or Outstanding.

Ingredients, as declared: Organic Duck Muscle, Organic Duck Heart, Organic Duck Gizzard, Organic Duck Liver, Organic Zucchini, Organic Mango, Organic Pumpkin, Organic Blueberries, Organic Parsley, Salmon Oil, Organic Inulin, Potassium Chloride, Magnesium Oxide, Choline Chloride, Calcium Pantothenate (Vitamin B5), Zinc Sulfate, Niacin (Vitamin B3), Vitamin E Supplement, Thiamine Mononitrate (Vitamin B1), Vitamin B6 Supplement, Manganese Oxide, Vitamin A Supplement, Calcium Iodate, Folic Acid (Vitamin B9), Selenium Yeast, Vitamin B12 Supplement, Biotin (Vitamin B7), Vitamin D3 Supplement

The headline is the meat share, and it is unusually high. Organic beef takes 82% on both Boeuf Du Cap labels, organic salmon 82.5% on the 400 g Fisherman's Dream, free range rabbit 86% in Heaven and Earth. Sound Of Game splits its wild venison across four printed cuts, muscle meat at 34.4%, lung at 25.8%, liver and tongue at 12.9% each.

Organs are itemised rather than pooled, which is the detail that separates this range from most of the shelf. Liver, lung, tongue, heart and gizzard all appear by name and by weight. Liver in particular earns its place in a small share. It is rich in vitamin B12 and vitamin A, and it carries copper and selenium too, while being very easy for a dog to digest.

The plant side is small and looks chosen: quinoa, pumpkin, carrots, sweet potato, courgette, apricot, lingonberries, spinach, apple and pear. Quinoa does most of that work. It is a seed, not a true grain, and it carries carbohydrate while bringing protein and fibre in with it. Fibre runs high across the range as a result, up to 13.6% of dry matter, which suits a dog whose motions need a little more body.

Fermented Jerusalem artichoke concentrate and inulin close most lists at 0.5%, feeding the gut's own friendly bacteria. Salmon oil at 1% brings marine omega 3 to the beef and venison recipes, and spirulina at 1% is the flourish. Chickenrella uses extra virgin olive oil instead, which is a good source of vitamin E.

Vitamins and minerals are handled two ways here. Several recipes fold them into the ingredient list itself, so you read them in place, while the rest print a separate panel with a figure beside every entry. Both are readable, and plenty of wet labels are not, though it does mean the doses are not comparable line for line across the range.

Duck muscle, heart, gizzard and liver with courgette, mango, pumpkin, blueberries and parsley, and salmon oil for the marine omega 3. Like the chicken recipe it leaves ash off the panel, so its dry matter figures are not shown. It is sold for puppies and seniors as well, not adults alone.

£14.02 a kilo on the five recipes we hold a figure for, in 195 g, 340 g and 400 g cans sold in packs of 6 and 12. No per kilo figure is recorded for the 340 g Fisherman's Dream, Duck A La Royale or Heaven and Earth.

As a guide, start from about 840 kcal a day for a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). Across four of those five that is roughly 643 to 709 grams a day, or between £9.02 and £9.95 a day. The 400 g Boeuf Du Cap is the exception at about £16.82 a day. Its declared energy of 70 kcal per 100g is far below the rest of the range, so the portion rises to around 1200 grams.

The labels' own guides sit close to that estimate, running from 600 to 762 grams a day for a 20kg dog depending on the recipe.