

Ruff's Recipes
Ruff's Recipes Grain-Free Trays: Shepherds Pie review
Four Excellent grain-free trays, each 60% meat with almost no starch underneath and not a single category term on the labels. Two keep to one animal, the fish tray leads with cod, and Hunters Stew splits its meat four ways with a percentage for each.
Our view
Likely to suit
- Dogs kept to one animal, through the chicken or the lamb
- Homes avoiding cereal altogether
- Dogs that have run out of the usual meats; Hunters Stew brings duck and venison
- Protein doing the heavy lifting, at 50.0% of dry matter or more on three trays
- Smaller dogs and grazers, as a 150g tray leaves no leftovers
- Digestions that like a prebiotic, with chicory on every label
Worth watching
- Salmon oil alongside the cod in Homely Fish Pie
- Ash far higher in Shepherds Pie than the rest
- Four animals in Hunters Stew, the opposite of an elimination diet
- Light trays at 72 to 88 kcal per 100g, so a large dog goes through many in a day
Written by our editorial team. Independent guidance, not veterinary advice.
How this scores
How we scoreThe details
Dog fit
Listed for adults of every size. These trays are not interchangeable, so read the one you are putting in the trolley.
Wet
Adult
Toy, Small, Medium, Large, Giant
Lamb
The score, in context
- Hunters Stew 79.1
- One-Pot Chicken 73.8
- Shepherds Pie 73.0
- Homely Fish Pie 71.4
All four Excellent. Typical wet food: Excellent.
Hunters Stew pulls clear by naming four animals with a figure each, and the other three sit close together just below it.
What's in it
- Lamb60%One red meat.
- Potato, carrot4% each
- Minerals
- LinseedPlant omega 3.
- Dried herbs and botanicals: seaweed, nettle, rosemary, turmeric, reishi, valerian and more0.2%Trace level.
- ChicoryA source of inulin, food for the gut's good bacteria.
- Dried blueberry
Zinc and manganese as amino acid chelates, with iodine and copper; no vitamins are declared.
Crude ash is declared at 6.0%, converting to 33.3% of dry matter, far above the other three trays.
Named ingredients
Against the range
- Ash, dry matter
- 33.3%
- 13.9% to 16.7% on the others.
- Protein, dry matter
- 38.9%
- 50% and above on the others.
- Energy
- 88 kcal per 100g
- The richest; 72 to 85 elsewhere.
A change of scene for a dog tired of poultry and fish.
Every tray is built on 60% meat with no cereal, then two vegetables, linseed for omega 3, chicory for inulin and a 0.2% herb and botanical blend at trace level. Carbohydrate reads 0.0% of dry matter on three trays and 2.7% on Hunters Stew.
The added panel is short: chelated zinc and manganese with iodine and copper, and no vitamins declared on any of the four. Calcium runs from 1.67% of dry matter in the fish to 2.22% in the stew and the chicken.
Nutritional analysis
Declared analysis
7%
6%
1%
6%
82%
Dry weight
38.9%
33.3%
5.6%
33.3%
0%
As-fed composition
Estimated breakdown of the finished product by ingredient category, from the declared ingredient list and ingoing weights. These are estimates, not measurements.
60%
19.1%
4%
6.6%
10.3%
Pricing & size
- Price per kilo
- £9.27 (RRP)
- Pack
- 1 x 150g/kg)
- A 15kg dog eats
- 825 to 1350 g a day, 1090 in the middle
- Cost per day, 15kg dog
- £10.10
Premium end of the market for a wet food, with the Value pillar reading Excellent.
Ingredients and nutrition are taken from manufacturer data. Retailer pricing is not yet live for this food.
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