Waitrose Essential Chunks: Meaty Chunks in Gravy review

Three of these settle in our Good band and the Meaty Chunks in Gravy in our Average band, well below the Excellent band the typical adult wet food occupies. The labels account for nearly all of that gap. Transparency reads Average at best and Poor on the plainest labels, because a recipe written as meat and animal derivatives, cereals and various sugars leaves an owner with nothing to check. Protein and processing reads Good across the four and nutritional balance Excellent or better, which is the closer measure of what a dog actually eats. The declared analysis is unremarkable in the good sense, with protein between 38.9% and 47.2% of dry matter and fat between 22.2% and 33.3%. This is ordinary supermarket wet food, and the label is written the way ordinary supermarket wet food usually is.

Ingredients, as declared: with lamb & vegetables in gravy, Meat and animal derivatives (36%, including 4% lamb), cereals, oils and fats, vegetable protein extracts, derivatives of vegetable origin, minerals, vegetables (0.45% mix of dried peas and carrots, equivalent to 4% vegetables), various sugars, with beef & vegetables in gravy, Meat and animal derivatives (36%, including 4% beef), cereals, oils and fats, vegetable protein extracts, derivatives of vegetable origin, minerals, vegetables (0.45% mix of dried peas and carrots, equivalent to 4% vegetables), various sugars, with turkey & carrots in gravy, Meat and animal derivatives (36%, including 4% turkey), cereals, oils and fats, vegetable protein extracts, derivatives of vegetable origin, minerals, vegetables (0.45% dried carrots, equivalent to 4% carrots), various sugars, with chicken & vegetables in gravy, Meat and animal derivatives (36%, including 4% chicken), cereals, oils and fats, vegetable protein extracts, derivatives of vegetable origin, minerals, vegetables (0.45% mix of dried peas and carrots, equivalent to 4% vegetables), various sugars

Meat and animal derivatives opens every one of these labels, at 36% in the cans and the gravy packs and 40% in the Meaty Chunks in Jelly. The term is a legal category and not a description at all. It covers the fleshy parts and by-products of any warm-blooded land animal in any proportion. The maker can move between animals from batch to batch and the tin still reads the same. The animal on the front is declared at 4%, and that is the fixed point in an otherwise flexible list.

Cereals appear on the two can recipes and on the Meaty Chunks in Gravy, again as a category with no grain named. The Meaty Chunks in Jelly leaves them out altogether and shows it in the analysis, where estimated carbohydrate drops to 6.2% of dry matter against 25.0% on the cans.

Most of these lists carry various sugars near the end. They are there because dogs like the taste, and their position suggests a small share of the recipe. Still, an owner keeping an eye on a dog's waistline will want to have spotted them.

Three more category terms turn up on the gravy pack: vegetable protein extracts, derivatives of vegetable origin, and oils and fats. Between them they could describe a very wide range of material. Its vegetables at least come with a figure, at 0.45% dried peas and carrots rehydrating to the equivalent of 4% vegetables. Every recipe lists minerals. None prints a dosed vitamin or trace element panel beside them, so that part of the label rests on trust.

Four recipes across the pack, adding lamb to the beef, chicken and turkey, each named at 4% within 36% meat and animal derivatives. This is the only one with counted vegetables, at 0.45% dried peas and carrots or dried carrots on their own. It also carries the longest list, with vegetable protein extracts, derivatives of vegetable origin and oils and fats all on it.

The cans are 400g in packs of 6, at £2.06 a kilo, and the Meaty Chunks packs are 100g in packs of 12, at £3.29 a kilo.

Take the daily requirement as roughly 840 kcal for a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That comes to about £2.33 a day on the cans and between £3.19 and £3.27 on the smaller packs. In grams that is around 1132 a day on the cans, 970 on the gravy packs and 993 on the jelly packs, which is the sort of quantity any light wet food asks for.