Years Cupboard Fresh Retail: Chicken Thigh Mediterranean Casserole review

All three recipes land in our Outstanding band, and there is barely anything to separate them. The typical fresh adult food sits in our Outstanding band too, and gently cooked food is the strongest company on our shelves. Keeping pace with that across three recipes is worth noting. Every recipe reads Outstanding on protein and processing and on nutritional balance, and the same goes for transparency and value. That leaves the decision to the animal in the tray.

It is also worth saying what a band cannot show. These three share a formula and a philosophy, so the difference is the protein and the richness. What your dog has done well on before decides it.

Ingredients, as declared: Fresh Chicken Leg (15%) [Fresh Chicken thigh 60%, Fresh Chicken drumstick 40%], Fresh Chicken Gizzards (15%), Fresh Chicken Heart (15%), Fresh Chicken Liver (15%), Fresh Sweet Potato (11%), Fresh Red Pepper (9.5%), Fresh Pre-soaked Buckwheat (7.2%), Fresh Spinach Leaf (2.8%), Cold-Pressed Rosemary-infused Sunflower Oil (2.17%), Fresh Courgette (2%), Deactivated Nutritional Yeast (1%), Fresh Apple (1%), Vitamins & Minerals (1%), Fresh Pre-soaked Quinoa (0.8%), Taurine (0.25%), Cold-Pressed Organic Hempseed Oil (0.2%), Sun Dried Oregano (0.05%), Algae Powder (0.05%), Alfalfa powder (0.05%), Nettle Powder (0.04%), Chicory Root Powder (0.04%), Kelp Powder (0.03%), Chamomile Powder (0.02%), Dandelion Powder (0.01%).

What makes these lists so readable is that nothing is pooled. Instead of one meat entry, each label breaks the animal into its cuts and puts a figure against each. The chicken tray gives leg, gizzards, heart and liver 15% apiece, the pork spreads six cuts from shoulder down to kidney, and the beef names steak, lung, heart, liver and kidney in falling order. Totalled up, each recipe reaches 60% animal.

Moisture is declared between 65.9% and 70.0%, which is simply what gentle cooking leaves in the tray, and it explains why fresh food is served in larger portions than a dried food of similar energy. Protein converts to between 37.3% and 42.7% of dry matter and fat to between 31.0% and 32.6%, so this is a rich bowl by any reading of the numbers.

The carbohydrate side is deliberately small. Pre-soaked buckwheat and quinoa do a cereal's job without being cereals, sweet potato and parsnip fill in behind them, and the estimated carbohydrate stays between 16.3% and 19.5% of dry matter. Quinoa deserves a line of its own. It is one of the very few plants carrying every amino acid a dog needs.

The fat comes from sunflower oil that has been cold-pressed and infused with rosemary, backed by organic hempseed oil. Rosemary earns its place twice, being a natural antioxidant that keeps those oils from going stale on the shelf. Taurine is added at 0.25% to all three even though most dogs make their own, and deactivated nutritional yeast at 1% brings B vitamins along with a savoury note dogs tend to enjoy.

Each list finishes with a run of powders measured in hundredths of a percent: chicory root and kelp, with alfalfa, nettle, chamomile and dandelion beside them. Chicory root is the functional one, its inulin acting as food for the gut's own bacteria, while kelp is a natural source of iodine. The added vitamin and mineral premix sits at 1% and is printed out per kilo of food, calcium included at 4874mg.

The Mediterranean name comes from the vegetable side: red pepper at 9.5%, courgette at 2% and a pinch of sun dried oregano, with sweet potato at 11% underneath them. Chicken leg, gizzards, heart and liver each sit at 15%. Energy is gentlest here of the three at 140 kcal per 100g, and its carbohydrate estimate of 16.3% of dry matter is the lowest on the shelf.

£9.48 a kilo on all three recipes. Tray sizes are 280g and 630g, then 770g, 875g, 980g and 1155g, available singly or in packs of four, and stockists take them as 8 × 320g and 8 × 630g.

For a sense of the daily figure, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition eats roughly 475 to 600 grams a day. The working figure is about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That lands between £4.50 and £5.69 a day depending on which of the three is in the bowl.