Cats often eat better from something wide and shallow than from a deep bowl. Whiskers are dense with nerve endings, and a narrow, steep-sided dish presses against them at every mouthful, which is part of why some cats paw food out onto the floor or leave a ring of it round the edge. A saucer 13.5 cm across lets a cat take her food without anything brushing her face.

Melamine is the sensible material for a dish that lives at floor level. It behaves like ceramic but does not fail the way ceramic does: a dropped ceramic bowl chips at the rim, and a chipped rim gives bacteria somewhere to sit where no cloth reaches. This one resists breaking, scratching and chipping, is BPA-free throughout, and goes in the dishwasher, which is worth having with wet food and the oily residue it leaves behind.

• 13.5 cm across, in a blue colourway
• Break-, scratch- and chip-resistant melamine
• 100% BPA-free and food safe
• Non-slip base to stop it sliding on tile or lino
• Dishwasher safe
• 90 g, light enough to lift and rinse one-handed
• Suitable indoors or outdoors

On the weight. At 90 g this is a light dish, and the non-slip base only does so much: a cat who likes to push her food about can still shift it across a smooth floor. Being a shallow saucer, it also suits dry food and normal wet portions rather than a large heaped serving.

Who it's for: Cats who leave food round the rim or tip it onto the floor, and owners who would rather wash a dish than replace a chipped one.