Tesco Kingswood Wet: Chicken Terrine with Garden Vegetables review

This terrine reaches our Excellent band, and so does the midpoint of the wet shelf, so what you have here is a supermarket recipe keeping company with the wider category instead of trailing it. Value reads Excellent, protein and processing Good, and nutritional balance and transparency both Outstanding. The naming does most of the work: one named meat at 60%, percentages against the vegetables, and not a category term in sight.

The front of the pack is borne out by the analysis. Protein converts to 47.6% of dry matter and estimated carbohydrate to just 5.8%, well under the 15.8% typical for adult wet food. This is a meat-led tin, not a meat-flavoured one.

Ingredients, as declared: Chicken (60%), Carrot (4%), Potato (4%), Peas (2%), Salmon Oil (1%), Minerals, Inulin (0.4%), Yucca Schidigera (0.2%). Natural Ingredients

The whole story of this recipe is chicken at 60%, and the label says chicken, not poultry or derivatives or a meal. Dog food uses more chicken than any other meat, for good reasons: fresh chicken is highly digestible, dogs almost universally like it, and it carries a full protein profile. That popularity is also why chicken intolerance turns up more often than intolerance to the less common meats. If your dog has reacted to poultry before, introduce this one slowly.

The vegetables are modest but real. Carrot at 4% brings vitamin A, soluble fibre and natural antioxidants. Potato at the same level gives the terrine its body, and the 2% peas add a small amount of plant protein and fibre. Between them they leave estimated carbohydrate at 5.8% of dry matter, which is remarkably low for wet food and tells you how little of this tin is filler.

Salmon oil at 1% is the quiet upgrade here. It supplies the long-chain omega 3 fats that plant oils cannot, the ones behind a good coat and steady joints. The label gives it a percentage of its own, not a place inside an oils and fats heading.

Inulin at 0.4% is a prebiotic fibre, usually drawn from chicory root. It feeds the bacteria that keep a large intestine working, and helps keep stools consistent. Yucca schidigera at 0.2% is a different kind of inclusion, added to keep stool smell down, not because a dog needs it.

The added mineral panel is dosed line by line. Vitamin D3 comes at 140 IU, vitamin E at 30 mg, zinc at 20 mg, copper at 2.3 mg, manganese at 2 mg and iodine at 0.5 mg per kilo. Ash converts to 11.9% of dry matter, a genuine mineral load and not a token one, though the label stops short of printing calcium.

£4.75 a kilo, in a 400g pack.

As a guide, feeding a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition comes to about £3.80 a day, or roughly 800 grams, assuming around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That is two packs a day for a dog that size, and rather less if the terrine is served over a dry food.