Walker & Drake Wet Food: Chicken with Broccoli review

The typical adult wet food holds our Excellent band, and both recipes here sit a step clear of it in our Outstanding band. These two finish comfortably within it on the back of a fully named ingredient list, a declared meat share above 60% on each, and calories printed on the pack instead of estimated. Protein and processing, nutritional balance and transparency all read Outstanding on both recipes.

Ingredients, as declared: Chicken 64%, Broccoli 5%, Carrot, Sweet Potato, Peas, Yeasts (source of Prebiotic MOS), Chicory Root Powder (source of Prebiotic FOS), Seaweed, Sunflower Oil, Glucosamine, Yucca, Chondroitin, Cranberry, Yeast Extract (source of Nucleotides)

Both lists open with the meat and give it a figure. Chicken with Broccoli declares chicken at 64%, and Turkey with Duck & Carrots divides its animal content between turkey at 45% and duck at 20%. Protein converts to 36.0% of dry matter and fat to 32.0% in both, so the two are nutritionally interchangeable and the choice comes down entirely to which animals suit your dog.

Every vegetable gets its own name here, and that is rarer than it should be. Broccoli at 5% in the chicken recipe and carrot at 5% in the turkey lead a short plant list of sweet potato, peas and, in each case, the other recipe's headline vegetable. Whole peas bring fibre and folate, a spread of minerals and a little plant protein. This far up the list they are a real ingredient, not bulk.

The gut side has clearly been thought about. Mannan-oligosaccharide comes from the yeast and fructo-oligosaccharide from chicory root powder, two prebiotics that go to work on the large intestine's useful bacteria. Yeast extract adds nucleotides. Seaweed carries iodine and a wide mineral spread, and cranberry and yucca finish the list. Sunflower oil is the added fat. It is low in saturates and naturally rich in vitamin E.

Glucosamine and chondroitin sit on both labels without a printed dose. They are the standard pairing wherever a food is aimed at older joints, and their presence suits a dog heading into later life. With no figures beside them they read as a supporting extra, not a programme. Any prescription a vet has already put in place should stay exactly where it is.

Every entry on the short added panel carries a dose, with vitamin A at 3600IU and vitamin D3 at 300IU alongside iron, zinc, manganese and copper, each printed per kilo. In a recipe this meat-led, much of the micronutrition arrives in the ingredients themselves. A short panel here is a sign of confidence.

Chicken at 64% with broccoli at 5%. Reach for this one if you want a single named meat in the bowl. It is the more energy dense of the two at 116 kcal per 100g, so servings come out a touch smaller.

Take the daily requirement for a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition as roughly 840 kcal (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). The chicken recipe works out at about 724 grams a day, the turkey at 743.

Those two figures rest on calories the maker declares, not on an estimate of ours, so they are firmer than most wet-food portion guides. The label's own guide puts a 15kg dog between 487.5 and 780 grams a day, which brackets our estimate neatly.