Sainsbury's Nature's Goodness Adult Wet Trays: Terrine with Chicken & Vegetables review

Our scoring lands all three trays in our Excellent band, with the turkey and the chicken well clear of the beef. The wet shelf is a strong one and its midpoint is an Excellent as well, so this range holds the middle of a good crowd rather than trailing behind it. Transparency reads Outstanding on all three, nutritional balance Outstanding on the chicken and turkey and Excellent on the beef, protein and processing Excellent on that pair and Good on the beef, value Excellent throughout. That is the shape of a food that declares its meat, keeps its plant list short and prints the figures to back both up.

Ingredients, as declared: Chicken 60%, Potato 20% (from 5% Dried Potato), Vegetables 10% (from 1.9% Dried Peas and Carrots), Minerals, Rapeseed Oil* 0.75%, Salmon Oil* 0.3%, Dried Tomato, Dried Kelp, Chicory 0.056%, Dried Basil, Plant and Citrus Extracts 0.014%. *Source of Omega 3 and Omega 6.

The named animal opens every list at 60%, and not one of the three hides behind a category term for its meat. Protein converts to 36.0% of dry matter on the beef and turkey trays and 38.0% on the chicken, a sound meat-led reading for a food that is three quarters water.

Potato does most of the rest of the carrying. The chicken and turkey labels declare potato at 20% rebuilt from 5% dried potato, with vegetables at 10% from 1.9% dried peas and carrots. The beef label says much the same thing the other way round, listing dried potato at 4.9% and dried vegetables at 1.8% with their fresh equivalents in the bracket. It also adds a little potato starch to hold the terrine together.

The oils are small and all of them are named. Sunflower oil at 0.75% sits on the beef tray, rapeseed oil at the same figure on the chicken and turkey, and every tray then adds salmon oil at 0.3%. That salmon oil is where most of the omega 3 comes from. A fish-free household needs to read to the end of the list.

After that the lists thin out into flavour and gut entries: dried tomato, dried kelp, dried basil, plant and citrus extracts, and chicory at around 0.06%. Its inulin is the sort of soluble fibre gut bacteria live on. On a recipe led this firmly by meat, none of it needs to do heavy lifting.

The added panel is short and dosed where it is printed, running through vitamin A, vitamin D3, vitamin E, zinc, iron and manganese with a figure beside each on the beef and turkey labels. The beef gives calcium at 2.4% of dry matter and the chicken and turkey 3.2%, generous for adult maintenance and nothing a healthy adult dog will notice.

Chicken at 60%, with rapeseed oil in place of sunflower. Once the water is taken out, no tray has more protein, at 38.0% of dry matter. Energy sits at 114 kcal per 100g, so portions land between the beef and the turkey.

The beef and chicken trays are £3.29 a kilo and the turkey is £2.91 a kilo, all in a 395g tray, with the turkey also sold as a pack of 6.

As a guide, feeding a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition works out at between £2.04 and £2.58 a day depending on the tray. That is worked on about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That is roughly 700 to 785 grams a day.