Scrumbles Grain Free Veggie review

Our scoring rewards named animal ingredients and a meat-forward analysis, and a meat-free recipe is not playing that game at all. That is why this tray reads Average on our bands while the typical adult wet food reads Excellent. The placement describes what the recipe is; it is not a warning about it.

The specifics follow directly from the brief. Protein and fat are modest because the pulses are carrying them, and the carbohydrate estimate is high because lentils, chickpeas and potato are doing the structural work. The label itself gives a lot away. Percentages sit beside the main ingredients and each herb is named on its own. The vitamin and mineral panel is dosed line by line, with methionine and lysine added on top. Anyone shopping for a meat-free tray is buying that trade on purpose.

Ingredients, as declared: Lentils 4%, Chickpeas 4%, Peas 4%, Sweet Potato 4%, Red Kidney Beans 2%, Apple 2%, Carrots 2%, Dried Potato 2%, Vegetable Oil, Minerals, Herbs (Oregano, Marjoram, Sage), Seaweed, Blueberries, Slippery Elm 0.1%, Calories: 108kcal/100g

Pulses lead the list and carry the protein. Lentils, chickpeas and peas each sit at 4%, and red kidney beans follow at 2%. Between them they supply the protein, and they bring fibre and minerals with it. Plant protein carries a dog less far than meat protein. That is why the amino acid top-up further down the label matters so much here.

Sweet potato takes the starch at 4%, and dried potato adds 2% more. Carrots and apple, 2% each, add a little sweetness and some soluble fibre. Carbohydrate is estimated at 17.5% as fed and 62.5% of dry matter. That estimate is arrived at by subtracting the printed analysis from the whole. It is the standard method for a wet food.

Vegetable oil could stand to be more specific. The term takes in a whole range of plant oils, and this label never picks one. The herbs are handled better. Oregano, marjoram and sage each get a name of their own, and seaweed brings iodine and trace minerals. Slippery elm at 0.1% closes the list. It is a small settling touch, not a headline ingredient.

The added panel is doing more work in a meat-free food than it would elsewhere, and this one is printed in full. Vitamin A comes in at 3,500 IU, vitamin D3 at 350 IU and vitamin E at 35mg, with zinc 30mg, iron 20mg, copper 3mg, manganese 3mg, iodine 0.5mg and selenium 0.02mg. Methionine at 500mg and lysine at 50mg per kilo as fed sit alongside them, and those two are the difference between a plant recipe that stacks up and one that does not.

The label declares energy at 108 kcal per 100g, close to the 97 kcal per 100g of a typical adult wet food. Portions, in other words, land where an owner used to wet feeding would expect them to.

£6.56 a kilo, in 395g trays sold in packs of 7, 28 and 42.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition would eat around 778 grams a day, coming to about £5.10, assuming about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate).