The sickening reason chickens are so cheap
As the RSPCA launches a new campaign to ensure shops only sell high-welfare chickens, Closer investigates the horrors of meat farming and how your food might not be as ethical as you think…
❛ BROILER CHICKENS SUFFER FROM HEART ATTACKS AND CHRONIC LEG PROBLEMS ❜
Every year, shoppers in the UK spend over £1.7 billion on chicken. Yet, despite being the nation’s favourite meat, most people don’t know the horrific conditions the majority of animals are farmed in. Most chickens kept for meat are cramped in tiny cages, too small to flap their wings or even stand. And although 86 per cent of shoppers expect supermarkets to ensure the welfare standards of the chicken they sell, many highstreet stores are refusing to make the birds’ wellbeing a priority.
LACK OF EDUCATION
Animal welfare campaigner, Lucy Gavaghan, 17, has been raising awareness about chicken cruelty since 2016, and even convinced major supermarkets to stop selling eggs from caged hens in their stores.
She says, “Most people really care about animal cruelty. However, there is a lack of education about how chickens are reared – so people don’t understand the difference between an intensively farmed [broiler] chicken, and one that is free-range or organic. Broiler birds are a breed of chicken that put on weight very easily and have huge appetites. They are grown so fast, they can’t even carry their own body weight, and they often suffer from heart attacks and chronic leg problems. They are kept in small barns with no access to the outdoors and never see daylight. Broiler chickens are also often slaughtered for their meat at eight weeks, whereas regular chickens can live for eight years. Free-range chickens have lots of extra space to roam around. In a world where people eat meat, we need to accept that this is the least cruel option.”
The issue of poor chicken welfare first hit the headlines in 2008, when celebrity chefs Hugh FearnleyWhittingstall and Jamie Oliver campaigned for retailers to treat the birds better. But, according to the RSPCA, little has changed.
Campaign manager Claire Williams from the RSPCA, says, “After the campaign, supermarkets were quick to promise better welfare for chickens but, ten years later, they still haven’t made much meaningful progress. Shoppers may believe they are buying higher-welfare chickens, as some packaging includes potentially misleading images suggesting the birds are free-range but, in reality, the chicken will have been reared inside an intensely crowded barn.
“We’re calling for supermarkets to use clearer labelling systems and sign up to the Better Chicken Commitment to take care of the chicken’s welfare by giving them more space to live and not using breeds that grow too fast.”
FRUSTRATING
Shockingly, retailers also put higher-welfare chicken – such as Rspca-assured, organic and free-range meat – in less prominent places on the shelves as they claim they are less lucrative. And they only give special offers on broiler chickens. The price difference between intensively reared chickens and their free-range equivalent can reach £3.40 per kilogram. And in some supermarkets you can buy a whole chicken for just £1.80.
Campaigner Lucy says, “It’s incredibly frustrating that supermarkets aren’t promoting higher-welfare chicken. Eight out of 10 people expect supermarkets to ensure that the meat they sell is farmed to highwelfare standards.
“And I strongly believe supermarkets should absorb the extra cost of selling freerange chickens and lower prices to encourage people to buy them. By doing this, hopefully restaurants and takeaways would be encouraged to do the same.”
And chickens aren’t just suffering for their meat. Lucy adds, “Although my campaign for caged eggs means many
supermarkets have pledged to stop selling them by 2025, they still use caged hens’ eggs in products such as cakes, biscuits or sauces. This means people are unwittingly fuelling the caged hen industry. The only way to know is to read all the ingredients on the back of the packaging and make sure the words free range are used. It’s a problem in restaurants, too, as they rarely reveal whether they use freerange eggs in their recipes.”
A LONG WAY TO GO
Jamie Oliver’s Jamie & Jimmy’s Friday Night Feast recently named a number of high-street restaurants and well-known confectionery brands that still use caged eggs.
Lucy says, “M&S, The Co-op and Waitrose only use free-range eggs in their own-brand products, and other brands have pledged to do the same. This is a huge step in the right direction and, eventually, I hope caged hens eggs will be a thing of the past. All chickens deserve a happy life.”