Simpsons Premium Adult Wet Food: Four Bird review

All seven recipes come out in our Excellent band, though they are not identical inside it. The wild boar with ostrich and the venison with rabbit are the strongest of the set, and the kangaroo the gentlest, with the rest gathered in between. A typical adult wet food also reads Excellent on our bands, so a whole range holding that line without a weak member is a genuinely good showing.

Two things are doing the lifting. The first is protein, which converts to between 38.5% and 58.9% of dry matter depending on the animal, meat-led by any reading of the numbers. The second is what is missing. Estimated carbohydrate sits between 5.0% and 19.6% of dry matter, against 15.8% for the typical adult wet food, and the organic vegetables season the bowl without bulking it out.

Transparency reads Outstanding on six of the seven and Good on the kangaroo.

Ingredients, as declared: 60% Fresh Meat: Goose 15%, Duck 15%, Chicken 15%, Turkey 15%, Organic Potatoes, Organic Carrots, Organic Pumpkin, Organic Spinach, Vitamins and Minerals.

Fresh meat at 60% is the constant. In wet food that term usually covers organ meat and connective tissue as well as muscle. That is closer to what a dog would eat left to their own devices, and no bad thing at all. Simpsons goes further than most by naming the species and their shares inside it. Turkey at 40% with duck at 20%, venison at 40% with rabbit at 20%, wild boar and ostrich at 30% each, and goose, duck, chicken and turkey at 15% apiece in the four bird.

Three recipes keep to one animal. Kangaroo, organic chicken at 60% and lamb at 60% each stand alone, with no second species and no unnamed fat or fish oil creeping in behind them. That is what makes them usable when you are trying to isolate a single protein.

The plant side is identical throughout: organic potatoes, organic carrots, organic pumpkin and organic spinach. Potato is the starch of the four and the reason the carbohydrate estimate is not zero. It stays low across the range even so, from 5.0% of dry matter on the four bird up to 19.6% on the venison with rabbit. None of the four is given a percentage.

Then the label stops. Vitamins and minerals is the only additive entry on six of the seven recipes, minerals alone on the organic lamb, and no quantities are published anywhere. Nearly every complete food adds a vitamin and mineral premix, so its presence is expected rather than remarkable, but a maker this careful about naming its meat could reasonably be asked to name the rest.

No label prints calories either, so the energy figures shown for these recipes are our estimate from the analysis, running from 76 kcal per 100g on the kangaroo to 119 on the organic lamb. One range covering that much ground is a wide spread. Before you judge the portion size, check which end your chosen pack sits at.

Goose, duck, chicken and turkey at 15% each, the widest spread of birds on the shelf. Its carbohydrate estimate is also the lowest in the range, at 5.0% of dry matter. Its protein is the second highest here at 54.0% of dry matter, which makes it the pack to reach for when your dog eats poultry happily and you want the most out of a tray.

The organic chicken is £10.12 a kilo. The kangaroo and the wild boar with ostrich are £8.75 a kilo. The remaining four recipes are £7.62 a kilo. Every recipe comes in a 400g pack, sold singly and in sixes.

Assume about 840 kcal a day for a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). Depending on the recipe, that dog eats between 705 and 1107 grams a day, at between £5.37 and £10.37.