Yarrah Chunks: Vegetarian review

The three chunks all come to rest in our Average band, with the meat free Vegetarian recipe the strongest of them. Most of the wet food we look at reaches our Excellent band, so this range sits a fair way back from where the middle of the shelf lands. That distance comes almost entirely from what the label chooses to say. Meat and animal derivatives, cereals and derivatives of vegetable origin are all legal terms that can cover an enormous field, and a recipe written that way leaves a scoring system very little it can credit. Organic certification is real and it counts for something, but it describes how the ingredients were grown rather than which ingredients they are, and it cannot fill in the blanks the wording leaves.

Ingredients, as declared: soya*, vegetables* (2.2% dried peas*, equivalent to 7.5% peas*, 0.55% dried carrots*, equivalent to 5% carrots*), oils* and fats* (sunflower oil*), minerals, fruit* (0.2% dried rosehip*), derivatives of vegetable origin* (lovage*). *= organic.

The beef and chicken tins are built identically. A 35% block of meat and animal derivatives comes first, organic cereals follow with wheat printed at 6%, then minerals and a small share of plant derivatives with nettle and tomato named at 0.2% each. What separates the two is how much of that meat block is spoken for. The chicken tin accounts for the whole 35% as chicken. The beef tin names only 5% as beef.

For anyone steering around a particular animal, that difference matters. On the chicken tin the meat is fully declared and you know what you are feeding. On the beef tin the remaining 30% of the block could be any species the plant is running, and the label carries no obligation to tell you which. It is a common way to write a wet label and it is not a hygiene worry, though it does ask for some trust in the recipe.

The Vegetarian tin is a different proposition entirely. Soya leads. Dried peas at 2.2% rehydrate to the equivalent of 7.5% peas, dried carrots at 0.55% to 5% carrots, and sunflower oil carries the fat with rosehip and lovage in trace amounts. Soya is protein rich on paper, and protein does convert to 40.0% of dry matter here, the highest of the three, though plant protein is not as available to a dog as animal protein is.

Yarrah has clearly thought about that, because the Vegetarian recipe carries the fullest additive panel in the range, taking in taurine and L-carnitine alongside a broad set of B vitamins. Taurine is something a dog would normally pick up from meat, so adding it back is exactly the right instinct for a meat free bowl.

The analysis across the range is modest. Protein converts to 36.8% of dry matter on the meat tins with fat at 26.3%. Estimated carbohydrate lands at 25.3% of dry matter where the typical adult wet food runs at 15.8%, rising to 31.5% on the Vegetarian. Part of that is the wheat, and part of it is the arithmetic standing in for entries the label never breaks down.

One label habit is worth stating plainly. The vitamin and trace element panels are published as bare figures with no unit anywhere beside them. The additives are declared and the list is sensible enough, but as printed there is no way to tell what dose any of those numbers represents.

No animal ingredient anywhere. Soya leads, the peas and carrots are stated both dried and rehydrated, sunflower oil carries the fat and rosehip and lovage appear in trace. At 4.0% fat and 85 kcal per 100g it is the leanest and lightest of the three. It carries the fullest additive panel, with taurine and L-carnitine among its entries, and it is listed for adults only where the meat tins are listed for adults and seniors.

The beef chunks are £6.46 a kilo in an 820g tin, the chicken chunks £7.90 a kilo in 405g and 820g tins, and the Vegetarian £10.67 a kilo in packs of 12 × 150g.

As a guide, feeding a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition works out at £6.10 a day on the beef, £7.46 a day on the chicken and £10.50 a day on the Vegetarian. About 840 kcal a day is the basis, from the standard 110 × bodyweight^0.75 maintenance estimate. That is roughly 944 grams of either meat tin, or 984 grams of the Vegetarian. The Vegetarian label puts a 12kg dog on 825 grams a day.