Tesco Senior Pouches Mixed Selection review

Our Average band is where this box settles. Protein and processing comes out Average with value beside it, while nutritional balance reads Outstanding and transparency Excellent. The arithmetic is visible on the pouch: one species at 4%, the rest of the animal content under a heading, and a plant side amounting to 0.1% chicory. There is very little named meat for our scoring to get hold of.

Wet scores strongly for us, with the middle of the shelf in our Excellent band, so this pouch sits a proper distance from that middle. Where the recipe does better than its band suggests is in the analysis, with protein converting to 47.2% of dry matter and estimated carbohydrate to 11.1%, under the 15.8% typical for adult wet food. This is a light meal, not a padded one.

Ingredients, as declared: With Turkey in Jelly: Meat and Animal Derivatives (41%, including 4% Turkey), Minerals, Oils and Fats, Derivatives of Vegetable Origin (0.1% Chicory), Various Sugars. With Lamb in Jelly: Meat and Animal Derivatives (41%, including 4% Lamb), Minerals, Oils and Fats, Derivatives of Vegetable Origin (0.1% Chicory), Various Sugars. With Chicken in Jelly: Meat and Animal Derivatives (41%, including 4% Chicken), Minerals, Oils and Fats, Derivatives of Vegetable Origin (0.1% Chicory), Various Sugars. With Beef in Jelly: Meat and Animal Derivatives (41%, including 4% Beef), Minerals, Oils and Fats, Derivatives of Vegetable Origin (0.1% Chicory), Various Sugars.

Meat and animal derivatives is a legal heading covering the fleshy parts and processing derivatives of warm-blooded land animals. It may hold good material or ordinary material, and neither the animal nor the cut is named, so the composition can shift between batches while the wording holds still. The commitments the label does make are the 41% animal fraction and the 4% inside it that belongs to the named species.

Because that heading carries almost all of the recipe, the analysis is the more useful thing to read. Protein comes out at 47.2% of dry matter, a strong figure for a pouch, with fat at 27.8%. Estimated carbohydrate lands at 11.1% of dry matter against a 15.8% typical, so whatever is in the pouch, it is not mostly grain.

The plant content is a whisper. Chicory at 0.1% brings inulin, a prebiotic fibre. Even at that level it is a sensible thing to include for an older gut, since it supports the bacteria of the large intestine. Various sugars follow it, added to make the jelly appealing and not because the recipe needs them. Cassia gum at 1.7 g per kilo sets the jelly firm.

The added panel is dosed and applies across the four varieties: vitamin D3 at 140 IU, vitamin E at 12 mg, zinc at 12 mg and iodine at 0.3 mg per kilo. Calcium converts to 1.67% of dry matter, an easy amount for an adult or older dog. Calories are printed on the box at 78 kcal per 100g. On a senior recipe there is no more useful number than that.

£2.49 a kilo, sold as a box of 12 x 100g pouches.

As a guide, feeding a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition comes to about £2.68 a day, or roughly 1077 grams, assuming around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). Wet food is light for its bulk, so a dog that size would go through a box in a little over a day on pouches alone. Many older dogs eat these over a dry food instead.