Chicken is our favourite meat

CHICKEN has overtaken red meat for the first time as traditional ‘meat and two veg’ meals fall out of fashion.

Diners’ habit of eating alone rather than sitting round a dining table as a family has also driven up sales, say experts.

Britons ate 529million kg of fresh poultry in the past year, a rise of 6.1 per cent.

Red meat sales were down 0.9 per cent to 511million kg, according to analysts Kantar Worldpanel.

The versatility of chicken and its availability in smaller sizes has made it more suitable for meals when fewer people were present, researchers said.

At the same time bigger roasting joints and larger cuts of red meat are less suitable for more casual dining experiences.

Kantar Worldpanel says nearly half of all home- cooked meals are dishes such as curries, pasta and stir-fry, which lend themselves to chicken as a key ingredient.

Nathan Ward, of Kantar, told The Grocer magazine: ‘We’ve reached a tipping point in terms of what people eat for meals. This is favouring chicken.’

Some 43 per cent of meals are eaten alone, compared to 33 per cent in 1980.