Royal Canin French Bulldog review

Our bands weigh several things at once, and this pouch pulls in different directions, which is where the Average placement comes from. Nutritional balance reads Outstanding, transparency Good and protein and processing Average. That is worth separating from the analysis, which is not the problem: protein converts to 43.0% of dry matter and fat to 27.0%, both strong readings for a wet food. The carbohydrate estimate comes to 13.5% of dry matter, under the 15.8% usual for adult wet food. What the placement reflects is a recipe described in categories rather than ingredients, on a shelf where the middle of the market reaches our Excellent band largely by naming what it uses. French Bulldogs have eaten well on this pouch for years and nothing here says otherwise.

Ingredients, as declared: meat and animal derivatives, derivatives of vegetable origin, cereals, minerals, oils and fats.

Meat and animal derivatives is a legal heading rather than a description. The fleshy parts of slaughtered warm blooded land animals fall under it, and so do the products of processing their carcasses. Five words cover material at the top of the trade and material at the bottom alike. Some makers use it to keep a recipe to themselves and some use it because their supply moves around, and from the outside there is no way to tell which is happening here.

Derivatives of vegetable origin and cereals work the same way. The first can mean nearly anything processed from a plant, the second can mean any grain at all, and both leave the maker free to change the material behind the words as supply shifts. That is the awkward part if your dog has a suspected intolerance, because you cannot exclude what you cannot identify.

The analysis is where this pouch answers back. Protein converts to 43.0% of dry matter and fat to 27.0%, a rich, meat led shape for a wet food. The carbohydrate estimate of 13.5% of dry matter is lower than most wet recipes manage. Ash converts to 11.0% of dry matter and calcium to 1.65%, both explained by minerals sitting on the list as an ingredient, not as an afterthought.

The added panel is short and every line in it carries a figure. Vitamin D3 is at 170 IU per kilo, zinc at 24 mg, iron at 8 mg, manganese at 2.4 mg, copper at 1.4 mg and iodine at 0.21 mg. A technological additive follows, clinoptilolite of sedimentary origin at 2.2 g per kilo, which is a natural clay used to hold a wet mix together in the pouch. That block is measured to the milligram while the list above it will not commit to a species.

Read plainly, this is a competently built pouch from a house that has been feeding dogs for a very long time. The energy figure of 87 kcal per 100g is firm and not an estimate, and the portion size suits a compact breed. You are being asked to buy the maker's judgement, not to read the recipe. Reading it is not what this label offers.

£12.35 a kilo, sold in 85 g pouches, twelve to a box.

As a guide, feeding a 15 kg adult dog in moderate condition works out at around £11.90 a day, or roughly 963 grams. Behind that sits the standard maintenance estimate, 110 × bodyweight^0.75, or about 840 kcal a day. The pack's own rows are lower, at 493 grams a day for an 8 kg dog and 751 grams for a 14 kg one. Each of those rows is written for a dog with a low activity level.