Wilsons Fresh Food: Bougie Beef review

Four recipes here reach our Outstanding band and the other two land a step below in Excellent. Protein and processing and transparency read Outstanding across all six, nutritional balance runs from Average up to Outstanding, and value never drops below Excellent. Gently cooked food keeps strong company, since the typical fresh recipe already stands in that same top band, so what separates these is the recipe rather than the ranking. The Luscious Lamb edges the range and the Fish and Beef sits at the other end of it, a single step apart, so your dog's protein history is the better guide.

Ingredients, as declared: Beef muscle meat (39%), beef kidneys (15%), beef liver (10%), sweet potato (10%), green beans (9.5%), carrots (9%), quinoa (4%), minerals and vitamins (1.4%), egg shells (0.7%), sunflower oil (0.7%), seaweed (0.46%), chicory (0.13%), DL-methionine (0.02%), mannan-oligosaccharides (0.02%), inulin (0.02%), glucosamine (0.016%), chondroitin sulphate (0.012%), yucca schidigera (0.01%), natural antioxidant - rosemary and tocopherol extracts (0.001%), thyme (0.004%), carnitine (0.002%), cranberry (0.002%), dandelion root (0.002%), marigold yellow (0.002%), ginger (0.002%), turmeric (0.002%).

Gentle cooking is the whole premise here. Moisture runs from 48% on the Fish and Beef up to 64% on the Luscious Lamb. These are cooked dinners with the water still in them, and the analysis only makes sense once it is converted to a dry matter basis. Do that and protein lands between 27.0% and 40.0%, with fat spread from 9.6% all the way to 36.1%. That is a wider range than most makers offer, and a useful one if your dog needs a leaner or a richer bowl.

Named muscle meat leads every label, from venison at 58% and lamb at 56% down to cod at 30% in the fish recipe. The organs behind it are named too: kidney, heart, liver and lung depending on the animal. Liver earns its place several times over, being about the richest natural source of B12, vitamin A and copper a dog can get at. Wilsons print its percentage too.

The carbohydrate side changes recipe by recipe. Sweet potato, peas, green beans and carrot do most of it, quinoa turns up on five of the six labels and rice only on the Luscious Lamb. Quinoa is a seed, so it is no grain at all, unusually complete for a plant and bringing protein and fibre along with its starch. The carbohydrate estimate stretches from 20.0% of dry matter on the Lamb to 48.8% on the Fish and Beef. If you like the bowl kept low in starch, that spread is worth reading.

Egg shell is the calcium source across the range, running from 0.7% to 1.7% of the label and landing calcium between 1.08% and 1.73% of dry matter. Seaweed at around half a percent brings iodine along with a broad set of trace minerals. The added panel finishes the job with chelated zinc, iron, manganese and copper alongside vitamins A, D3 and E.

The tail of each label is where the care really shows. Glucosamine and chondroitin sit at fractions of a percent, printed on the label with their doses. Chicory sits with inulin and mannan oligosaccharides, and together they feed the gut bacteria. Behind them come thyme, cranberry, dandelion root, ginger and turmeric at two thousandths of a percent, seasoning rather than substance, with rosemary and tocopherol extracts keeping the fats fresh.

Beef muscle meat at 39% with kidney at 15% and liver at 10%, then sweet potato, green beans and carrot filling the bowl out. The added fat here is sunflower oil, and at 42.2% of dry matter this carries the most estimated carbohydrate of the land meat recipes. At 224 kcal per 100g it is among the denser recipes here, so portions stay compact.

The Bougie Beef, Cheeky Chicken, Fish and Beef and Tender Turkey are £9.73 a kilo, with the Luscious Lamb and the Venison & Duck at £10.24. All six are 380g pouches, sold in boxes of 8, 16 or 32.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition works through roughly 372 to 497 grams a day, depending on the recipe. The sums behind that use about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That puts a day between £3.62 and £4.84, with the Cheeky Chicken feeding in the smallest portions and the Tender Turkey in the largest.