Taste of the Wild Adult Tins: Southwest Canyon review

This tin comes out in our Good band. Adult wet food scores well with us, its middle sitting in our Excellent band, so a Good placing here describes a sound recipe and not a poor one. What holds it back is construction: potato starch, dried peas and dried potatoes push the estimated carbohydrate to 30.0% of dry matter, against the 15.8% typical of adult wet food. That is a fair share of the tin doing work the meat could be doing. Transparency comes back Outstanding and nutritional balance Excellent, with protein and processing at Average, and nothing on this label reads as a corner cut.

Ingredients, as declared: Beef (24%), chicken (18%), potato starch, minerals, dried peas, dried potatoes, sunflower oil, dried tomatoes, linseed oil, inulin, dried sweet potatoes, dried blueberries, dried raspberries.

The list opens with beef at 24% and chicken at 18%, each carrying a printed percentage. Plenty of wet labels never go that far. Protein converts to 37.5% of dry matter and fat to 17.5%, an unshowy analysis that will suit a dog who finds the very rich tins heavy. Calories are not declared on this label, so the energy figure here is our own estimate.

The starch is spread across dried peas, dried potatoes and potato starch. Peas bring some fibre along with a scattering of micronutrients. Potato starch is closer to pure starch, and it is there to give the loaf its body. No cereal appears anywhere, so the recipe is genuinely grain free, though grain free and low in carbohydrate are two different things and this tin is only the first of them.

Fats come from sunflower oil and linseed oil. Sunflower oil is a light oil that carries vitamin E naturally, and linseed adds plant omega-3, which is a useful thing to see on a label with no fish anywhere on it.

The tail is small and pleasant: dried tomatoes, sweet potato, blueberries and raspberries, with inulin as a gentle prebiotic fibre. Nothing here is dosed at a level that will change your dog's week. Nothing here is padding either.

The additive panel is short and fully dosed, with vitamin A at 3000 IU, vitamin D3 at 350 IU, vitamin E at 40mg and zinc, iron and manganese each printed per kilo. Numbers beside each name are a small sign of a label written to be read.

£8.97 a kilo, in 390g tins sold in sixes.

For a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition we take about 840 kcal a day as maintenance, using the standard 110 × bodyweight^0.75 sum. That comes to roughly 1091 grams of food and about £9.79 a day.