Wilko Natures Best Tins review

Both tins share our Good band, and it is worth being plain about why. Protein and processing reads Good and nutritional balance Outstanding, a fair reflection of a tin with plenty of protein in it and very little starch. Transparency reads Average, because outside the animal named at 14% and two flagged extras, the recipe is written in category terms. The typical adult wet food finishes a band higher, in our Excellent band, and closing that gap would take nothing more complicated than naming what is already in the tin.

Ingredients, as declared: Meat and Animal Derivatives (Beef* 14%), Minerals, Oils and Fats (Fish Oils* 0.15%), Derivatives of Vegetable Origin (Chicory* 0.08%), Cranberry*, Blueberry*, Rosemary*, Parsley*, Spinach*. *Natural ingredients.

The first entry does the heavy lifting and tells you the least. Meat and animal derivatives is a legal umbrella covering any warm-blooded land animal and any part of it, and the only fixed point inside it is the named species at 14%. Wilko flags that species as a natural ingredient, which is a gesture towards openness, though it stops short of saying what the rest of the animal material is.

The analysis is where these tins make their case. Protein converts to 55.6% of dry matter and fat to 27.8%, both strong figures for a wet food. The estimated carbohydrate is 3.3% of dry matter, against 15.8% for the typical adult wet food. Once the water is set aside, what remains is a rich, meat-led plate rather than a starchy one.

Two named extras sit at trace level and both are worth having. Fish oils at 0.15% bring a little of the omega oil that oily fish are prized for. Chicory at 0.08% carries inulin, a soluble fibre the friendly gut bacteria do well on. Neither is dosed heavily enough to be the reason you choose the food, but both are pleasant to see printed.

Cranberry, blueberry, rosemary, parsley and spinach close the list off like a small garden. Each sits at a modest amount and each does a little antioxidant work, and rosemary also earns its keep as a natural preservative. The added panel behind them is fully dosed. Vitamin D3 is at 140 IU/kg, vitamin E at 30 mg/kg, zinc at 12 mg/kg, manganese at 1.0 mg/kg, copper at 0.5 mg/kg and iodine at 0.3 mg/kg.

Beef takes the named slot here, at 14% of the tin, and it is the only thing separating this label from its chicken sibling. Beef is the richer and more strongly flavoured of the two, and often the easier sell for a dog who has tired of poultry.

£2.25 a kilo for the beef tin and £1.88 a kilo for Rich in Chicken, both sold in 300g tins.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition eating about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate) would get through roughly 1055 grams. On the beef that is £2.37 a day, and £1.98 on the chicken. The tin's own guide puts a dog between 10kg and 20kg on 750 to 1200 grams a day.