Royal Canin Medium Puppy Chunks In Gravy review

This one comes out in our Average band, a long way under the Excellent band a typical puppy wet food reaches. The reason is almost entirely what the pack declines to say: seven ingredients, every one of them an umbrella term, and no calcium figure to anchor the growth side. Nutritional balance is the strong point here at Outstanding, with protein and processing and transparency both reading Average.

Read the analysis on its own and it is a different picture. Protein at 38.9% of dry matter with fat at 27.8% gives the proportions of a rich, meat-based wet food. At an estimated 95 kcal per 100g it is not far off the 106 typical of the format.

Ingredients, as declared: Meat and animal derivatives, oils and fats, cereals, vegetable protein extracts, minerals, derivatives of vegetable origin, yeasts.

Seven entries make up the entire recipe: meat and animal derivatives, oils and fats, cereals, vegetable protein extracts, minerals, derivatives of vegetable origin and yeasts. Each one is a legal grouping that can cover good material or ordinary material, and nothing on the pack narrows the field. The practical consequence for an owner is that a reaction cannot be investigated using this list.

Meat and animal derivatives leading tells you meat is the largest part by weight, and the analysis agrees, with protein converting to 38.9% of dry matter. Which animals contributed, and which parts of them, the wording does not say.

Oils and fats in second place is unusual, and it shows in the numbers. Fat converts to 27.8% of dry matter, well up on what most wet puppy foods carry. Our energy estimate lands at 95 kcal per 100g. Rich food suits a pup who burns through it, and calls for a measured hand with one who does not.

Cereals and vegetable protein extracts sit behind the fats, and carbohydrate converts to an estimated 19.4% of dry matter against the 13.6% typical of a puppy wet food. Fibre is light at 4.6% of dry matter, and ash at 9.3% suggests a decent mineral supply, though with no calcium percentage printed the growth side of the mineral question is left open.

The added panel is brief, covering vitamin D3 at 150 IU per kg, zinc at 19 mg, iron at 6 mg, copper at 2.7 mg, manganese at 1.9 mg and iodine at 0.34 mg. Clinoptilolite is there too, at 2 g, listed among the technological additives. The energy figure is our own estimate, since none is declared on the pack.

£6.29 a kilo, sold as a 10 x 140g pack.

A growing pup's portion keeps moving. Follow the table on the box, and let the shape of your own pup set the number of servings a day. Reweigh every few weeks as your pup fills out and the count will keep pace.