Wainwright's Adult Cans: Lamb with Brown Rice review

Both cans land in our Excellent band, the lamb a nose ahead of the turkey though the two read alike on every pillar. Protein and processing reads Excellent on each of them, with transparency Outstanding. Nutritional balance is Good and value Excellent. We score wet food strongly as a rule, and the middle of that shelf is Excellent too. These cans keep good company there without standing clear of it. The meat share is what carries them. The rice and oats, and the estimated carbohydrate that follows from them, are what stop them climbing further.

Ingredients, as declared: Lamb (73%), Brown Rice (4%), Oats, Dried Peas (1%, equivalent to 4% peas), Dried Sweet Potato (1%, equivalent to 4% sweet potato), Minerals, Dried Seaweed (0.5%), Sunflower Oil (0.5%), Dried Carrots (0.1%, equivalent to 1% carrots), Chicory Root Extract (as a source of Prebiotic Fructo-oligosaccharide) (0.02%), Yucca Extract (0.02%)

Meat comes first and by a distance: lamb at 73% on one label and turkey at 72% on the other, each the only animal in its can. No fish oil, no unnamed fat and no meat derivatives appear anywhere, which makes an exclusion diet simpler to run. On a mainstream shelf that is genuinely useful, and it is the single best reason to consider these cans.

Brown rice at 4% with oats behind it is the starch, joined by dried peas and dried sweet potato at 1% each and dried carrots at 0.1%. The oats are the one entry with no figure against them. Between them the carbohydrate estimate reads 26.0% of dry matter against the 15.8% typical of adult wet food. That estimate is taken by difference, so it also carries whatever else the analysis does not separately name.

The tail is small and sensible. Dried seaweed at 0.5% is a natural mineral source and sunflower oil at 0.5% adds fat. Chicory root extract at 0.02% is the prebiotic, with yucca extract at the same amount, the entry that usually softens what comes out the far end.

The analysis is identical across the two cans, with protein at 32.0% of dry matter and fat at 30.0%. That is a balanced pairing that suits a dog holding its condition well, and the moisture at 75.0% is simply what wet food is.

The added panel is dosed in print, with vitamin D3 at 328 IU and vitamin E at 26mg per kilo alongside vitamin A. Then come zinc at 24mg, iron at 12.5mg, copper at 2.5mg, manganese at 2mg, iodine at 0.45mg and selenium at 0.04mg. A short list of ingredients does not have to mean a vague label, and this one proves the point.

Lamb at 73%, the higher meat share of the pair and the reason this can noses ahead of its sister tin. Lamb is the warmer, richer flavour of the two and generally a good match for a dog that finds poultry dull.

£4.64 a kilo in the six pack of 395g cans, and £5.80 a kilo for the turkey bought as a single can.

As a guide, feeding a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition works out at around £3.40 a day, or roughly 734 grams, assuming about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). For a dog of 12 to 25kg the guide on the label sets 395 to 790 grams a day.