Sainsbury's Nature's Goodness Senior Terrine Multipack review

This terrine reads Excellent on our scoring, level with the middle of the wet shelf. The senior badge is not being paid for with a weaker recipe underneath it. The pillars come back Excellent for protein and processing, for nutritional balance and for value, with transparency Outstanding. The meat share and a willingness to print figures do most of the lifting.

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%, Glucosamine HCL 0.005%, Chondroitin 0.002%.

Chicken at 60% opens the list, exactly as it does on the adult terrine, and the analysis follows suit with protein at 36.0% of dry matter and fat at 28.0%. An older dog wants protein held up rather than cut back, and this holds it up.

The plant side is potato at 20%, rebuilt from 5% dried potato, with vegetables at 10% coming from 1.9% dried peas and carrots. That is a substantial share where wet food is concerned, and the carbohydrate estimate of 22.0% of dry matter shows it. It is honest starch, declared with its fresh equivalents in the bracket, and it is the main thing separating this tray from a straight meat terrine.

Only two added fats go in. Rapeseed oil at 0.75% and salmon oil at 0.3% both carry a name. Omega 3 comes from that salmon oil. It also means the list is not strictly single-animal, whatever the chicken at the top of the label suggests.

The senior thinking shows up in three places. Glucosamine HCL at 0.005% and chondroitin at 0.002% sit at the tail of the ingredients, and L-carnitine at 25mg per kilo joins the added panel, where its role is in moving fat towards energy. All three are modest and all three are printed, not implied. Together they read as a helpful nudge, not a course of treatment.

The rest of the added panel is dosed and reassuringly dull: vitamin A, vitamin D3, vitamin E, zinc, iron and manganese, each with a figure beside it. Calcium converts to 2.0% of dry matter, generous for adult maintenance and nothing a healthy dog will notice.

£2.91 a kilo, sold as a pack of six 395g trays.

As a guide, feeding a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition comes to £2.14 a day, around 737 grams, assuming about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate).