Sneyd's Wonderdog Wonderdog Grain Free Duck & Potato Wet review

This tray finishes in our Excellent band. The middle of the wet shelf sits there too, so the food keeps pace with a strong category. Excellent is the reading for protein and processing. Nutritional balance and transparency both read Outstanding, with value Excellent alongside the overall. The carbohydrate estimate is the figure that stands out: at 10.0% of dry matter it runs well under the 15.8% typical for adult wet food. That is what happens when meat takes 60% of the recipe and the plant side stops at potato and peas with a little carrot.

Ingredients, as declared: Duck (60%), Dried Potato, Dried Peas, Sunflower Oil, Dried Carrot, Salmon Oil (0.3%), Tomato Pomace, Dried Kelp, Dried Basil, Yucca Extract (0.005%).

Duck opens the list at 60%, with the percentage printed against it, and no other meat appears in the tray. Duck digests easily and tends to do well in taste tests. That helps explain why it turns up in recipes for dogs who have grown bored of the usual meats. For a wet food the protein reading is a strong one, converting to 40.0% of dry matter.

Dried potato and dried peas supply what little starch there is. Peas are the more useful of the two, with fibre and manganese in them alongside a spread of B vitamins and some plant protein. At this level neither reads as padding.

Sunflower oil does most of the fat work. It carries little saturated fat and brings vitamin E of its own, with salmon oil at 0.3% adding a small amount of omega-3. Fat converts to 36.0% of dry matter, rich for a wet recipe. These trays carry 119 kcal per 100g where the typical adult wet food sits at 97.

What follows is short and sensible: dried carrot for its beta-carotene and soluble fibre, tomato pomace, dried kelp, dried basil and yucca extract at 0.005%. The yucca usually earns its place by taking the edge off stool odour. Not one of them bulks the tray out, and not one is doing heavy lifting.

The added panel is brief and every entry carries a printed dose, running from vitamins A, D3 and E through to zinc, iron, copper and manganese. Ash converts to 12.0% of dry matter, comfortably normal territory for a complete wet food.

£7.57 a kilo, in single 395g trays and in multipacks of 6, 12 and 18.

As a guide, feeding works out at around £5.34 a day for a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition, assuming about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). Roughly 706 grams, then, or a little under two trays. The label's own guide for a dog between 11 and 20 kg runs from 395 to 790 grams a day.