Skinner's Field & Trial Wet Foods Adult: Chicken With Root Veg review

Wet food does well on our scoring in general, and the benchmark adult wet food belongs to our Excellent band. The salmon carton sits there, while the chicken and the lamb step up into our Outstanding band. They land close together, so the decision in front of you is which meat suits your dog rather than which carton is better made.

The strengths repeat across all three. A named animal at 60%, or 42% salmon with 18% white fish on the third. Root vegetables carrying printed percentages, dried egg for the amino acids it brings, and a vitamin and trace element panel where every line has a figure beside it. Protein converts to between 35.7% and 38.5% of dry matter.

Ingredients, as declared: Chicken 60%, Carrot 3.5%, Potato 3.5%, Parsnip 3%, Dried egg, Dried seaweed

The construction is the same on every carton and the meat share never moves. Chicken at 60%, lamb at 60%, and on the fish recipe salmon at 42% with white fish at 18% adding up to the same 60%. Not one of the three lists falls back on a category term for the meat. You always know which animal is in the bowl.

Carrot and potato at 3.5% each and parsnip at 3% are the whole vegetable contribution. Root vegetables like these bring some soluble fibre and a little natural sweetness, and at these levels they are seasoning the recipe.

Dried egg is the ingredient that separates these cartons from most of the wet shelf. As proteins go, egg is about as complete as they come, and a little of it lifts the amino acid profile of the meat beside it. It is also a genuine allergen for a small number of dogs, so it is worth spotting. Dried seaweed closes each list, bringing iodine and a spread of trace minerals.

The analyses tell you which carton to pick for which dog. Chicken and lamb both run at 8.0% fat as fed and 28.6% of dry matter, with 124 and 122 kcal per 100g. The salmon comes in leaner at 5.0% fat and 103 kcal per 100g. The chicken carton also declares double the crude fibre of the other two, which reads as a recipe difference rather than a different ingredient, since the printed lists are identical apart from the meat.

The added panel is fully dosed on all three: vitamin A at 3300iu, vitamin D3 at 275iu, zinc at 27.5mg, iron at 13.2mg, manganese at 2.2mg and copper at 1.3mg per kilo. For a range this plainly built, a panel with a figure beside every entry is exactly what you would hope to find on the back.

Chicken at 60% and the densest carton of the three at 124 kcal per 100g. It is also the highest in crude fibre by some way, printed at 3.0% and converting to 10.7% of dry matter, where the lamb and salmon both declare 1.5%.

£3.67 a kilo, the same figure on all three recipes, in 390g cartons.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition would eat between 677 and 816 grams a day depending on the carton, coming to between £2.49 and £2.99. The basis is about 840 kcal a day, using 110 × bodyweight^0.75 as the standard maintenance estimate. The label's own guide for a dog between 10kg and 20kg is 487.5 to 780 grams a day, which brackets that estimate neatly.