Winalot Meaty Chunks: Beef review

Six pouches, and they sit closer together on our scale than their labels might suggest. The mixed in jelly box sits at the top of the range, with the highest declared protein of the six and no cereals on its list. The rest of the line follows just behind it in the same Average band. The puppy box lands there too. The senior gravy box, which reads much like the others on paper and prints more of its chunk meat than most, finishes at the foot of the six without leaving that band. The typical adult wet food is an Excellent band food, so these read as the everyday pouch, which is a fair enough place for a supermarket range to sit.

Ingredients, as declared: Meaty Chunks Rich in Beef with Potatoes, Meat and animal derivatives (of which beef 14% in the chunks*), Cereals, Vegetables (1% dehydrated potatoes equivalent to 9% potatoes), Minerals, Various sugars, *pouch contains 40% chunks, Ingredients from natural origin, Meaty Chunks Rich in Chicken with Carrots, Meat and animal derivatives (of which chicken 14% in the chunks*), Cereals, Vegetables (0.8% dehydrated carrots equivalent to 7% carrots), Minerals, Various sugars, *pouch contains 40% chunks, Ingredients from natural origin, Meaty Chunks Rich in Lamb with Carrots, Meat and animal derivatives (of which lamb 14% in the chunks*), Cereals, Vegetables (0.8% dehydrated carrots equivalent to 7% carrots), Minerals, Various sugars, *pouch contains 40% chunks, Ingredients from natural origin

The chunk structure explains most of the percentages. Each pouch is 40% or 46% chunks with sauce or jelly around them. The meat figure applies inside the chunks, not across the whole pouch, so beef at 14% of the chunks is not 14% of the pouch. Winalot prints the chunk share on every label, which is what makes that arithmetic possible at all.

Meat and animal derivatives leads each list, with the named animal fixed inside it. That umbrella covers any part of the carcass of any warm-blooded land animal. Cereals follow on every label but the mixed jelly one, unnamed, and various sugars and flavourings close the list. None of these terms is a quality verdict in itself. Together, though, the front of the pouch can read exactly the same while the recipe behind it shifts from batch to batch.

The vegetables are the most open part of the range. Potatoes appear at 1% dehydrated, equivalent to 9% potatoes, carrots at 0.8% dehydrated, equivalent to 7.2% carrots, peas at 1.2% equivalent to 10.8% peas, and green beans at 0.9% equivalent to 8.1%. These are small amounts doing modest work. Carrots bring vitamin A for healthy eyes, and peas put in fibre and a few minerals.

Two of the panels stand apart from the rest. The mixed in jelly pouch declares 8.5% protein, which converts to 50.0% of dry matter, with estimated carbohydrate at 16.4%, and that combination sits close to what the typical adult wet food manages. The other adult pouches declare 6.5% protein, converting to 37.1% of dry matter, with estimated carbohydrate at 34.9%. Energy is declared rather than estimated across the range, at 75 kcal per 100g on the adult pouches and 84 kcal on the puppy box.

The added panels are dosed individually on every label and they are not identical. Vitamin A runs from 1320 IU/kg on the mixed jelly pouch up to 1900 IU/kg on the senior box. The senior label also carries the heaviest trace minerals of the six, with iron at 39 mg/kg, zinc at 54 mg/kg, copper at 5.8 mg/kg and manganese at 4.9 mg/kg. An older dog absorbing less from the same meal is the usual thinking behind a step up like that.

The beef pouch, built on chunks rich in beef at 14% of the chunks with 1% dehydrated potatoes, equivalent to 9% potatoes. Of the three single meats, beef has the strongest flavour, and a dog gone off birds will usually take it most readily.

£3.70 a kilo on the mixed in jelly, puppy and senior pouches. Everything in the range comes in 100g pouches, with the adult boxes running from 12 pouches up to 80, and the puppy and senior boxes sold as 12.

For a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition needing something like 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate), the adult pouches come to about 1120 grams a day. That is £4.14 a day at that per kilo figure. The label's own guide puts a 25kg dog on 1600 grams a day and a 10kg dog on 900 grams.