Sainsbury's Nature's Goodness Small Breed Variety Pack review

Our reading lands this pack in the Excellent band, level with the middle of the wet shelf. Nutritional balance and transparency both come back Outstanding, protein and processing Good and value Excellent. A recipe this short does well with us because there is so little to query. One named animal at 60%, two vegetables with figures beside them, and a handful of powders honest about being trace.

Ingredients, as declared: Chicken* (60%), Carrot* (3%), Potato* (2%), Minerals, Chicory Root* (0.08%), Spinach Powder*, Cranberry Powder*, Dried Parsley*, Rosemary Powder*, Blueberry Powder*. *Natural ingredients

Chicken at 60% carries a figure, and it is the one animal the label names. Nothing is folded into a category term here. Protein converts to 50.0% of dry matter and fat to 27.5%. Four fifths of the serving is water, so that reads meat-led by any measure.

The plant content is carrot at 3% and potato at 2%, and that is the lot. Cooked carrot digests easily and brings the pigment a dog turns into vitamin A, while the potato is doing most of its work on texture.

Chicory root at 0.08% carries inulin, and gut bacteria make use of that soluble fibre. Everything after it, the spinach, cranberry, parsley, rosemary and blueberry powders, is a trace entry. Rosemary earns its place twice over. It is a herb, and it is also the natural antioxidant keeping the fat from going stale.

The added panel is short and printed: vitamin D3, vitamin E, zinc, manganese, copper and iodine, each with a dose beside it. Lean this heavily on chicken and much of the micronutrition comes in with the meat, which is how a panel this size still stacks up. Vitamin A and iron are not among the entries.

For a dog being taken carefully through one animal at a time, the absence of unnamed fats, hydrolysates and category terms matters more than anything on the list. Chicken is what the label says, and chicken is all there is.

£5.33 a kilo, sold as six 150g servings in a 900g box.

As a guide, feeding a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition comes to £4.87 a day, roughly 913 grams, assuming about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). This pack is sized for a smaller dog, so that figure is a yardstick rather than a shopping plan.