Try the most expensive chicken in the world... AT £60!

As the cost of poultry skyrockets due to the war in Ukraine...

The British love affair with roast chicken is a longstanding one — but it is heading for choppy waters. A perfect storm of events, not least the war in Ukraine, which has forced up the cost of poultry food — means the price of chicken is soaring. Some industry sources suggest that prices will increase by as much as 50 per cent, and will soon match those of prime cuts of beef.

Marks & Spencer, for instance, is selling organic chicken fillets at £24.15 a kilo, the same price per kilo as organic rump steak. The increase has also affected chickens at the bottom end of the scale.

Ten chicken wings with two side dishes at the chicken restaurant chain Nando’s rose from £14.95 to £15.45 in November, and increased to £16 last month.

Chicken has long been regarded as Britain’s favourite source of protein. When KFC recently experienced a shortage, a number of customers dialled 999 to express their concern to the police. The fast food chain, too, has been forced to increase its prices.

The Ukraine conflict is having such a devastating effect because the country is such a large producer of wheat and soya, both key ingredients of chicken feed, which has doubled in price since the invasion began. The Office for National Statistics reports that between March 2020 and March this year, the price of chicken rose by 19 per cent. In the same period beef mince went up by just 3 per cent.

Rising energy and transport costs, labour shortages and even a severe outbreak of avian flu, which caused some of Britain’s free-range chickens to go into ‘lockdown’ on their farms at the beginning of this year, have also added to the costs.

The fear is that Britain may once again start regarding chicken as a luxury food, as it did in the 1950s.

PeRhApS not as luxurious, though, as the world’s most expensive chickens, which are produced by farmer pascal Cosnet and his wife Marie-Agnes at their small farm just outside Le Mans in central France.

These birds, which retail in Britain for a staggering £60 each (no fewer than 20 times the price of a basic supermarket chicken) are breathtakingly pampered.

Yet their buyers, who include 13 Michelinstarred chefs here and in France, as well as president Macron, european royalty and Middle eastern sheiks, believe that every mouthful is worth the expense.

‘What makes our poultry special are the herbs and the natural feed we give them,’ said pascal as he cradled one of his chickens like a much-loved member of the family. ‘That’s our secret. That’s why we are the best in europe, if not the world.’ And why, with their homegrown feed, they will not be as affected by the soaring costs of wheat and soya.

pascal’s farm at Coulans-sur-Gee in the Loire Valley is not so much a chicken shed as a luxury estate created for its featherbedded fowl.

he caters to their every whim, ensuring that they are given a natural, herb-based menu that would do justice to many of the high-class restaurants that are his principal customers.

There are no additives and certainly none of the dubious feeds used in factory farming.

Although pascal has also been troubled by an outbreak of avian flu, his chickens normally enjoy the full run of the farm, happily foraging for worms and herbs and pecking at geraniums, dandelions and mugworts, a member of the absinthe family.

‘The most important herb we use is mugwort, a form of absinthe which has a positive effect on the female hormones of chickens,’ said pascal.

‘Its Latin name is Artemisia vulgaris and it was named after the Greek goddess Artemis, who had the gift of curing women’s illnesses. It’s just one of 30 herbs we feed to the chickens, but probably the most important element in their diet.

‘We collect herbs en masse in the natural spaces four times a year. Then we make large quantities of “soup” or “concoctions” out of them and feed them to the birds. It’s very good for the chickens because it works on their muscular fat — it is that fat that gives the chicken the best taste.’

The chickens at pascal’s farm live relatively long lives.

They will enjoy everything the farm has to offer for at least 120 days before being slaughtered.

even on death row in the last week of their lives, they are given a special diet, which includes cow’s milk, to ensure an even distribution of fat.

ALThOUGh pascal’s chickens are beyond the reach of most people, there is a growing interest in so-called slow-reared chickens like his.

Many people are willing to pay a premium for a quality bird, even though prices are going up.

A free-range chicken in a supermarket now costs twice as much as an intensively reared bird, an organic one three times as much.

A slow-reared chicken can cost as much as £25.

But is it worth spending more money on an expensive chicken?

While they seem to be ethically raised — many consumers are concerned about welfare issues — will a pricier chicken give you a better lunch, with more meat, more texture and more flavour?

The Mail assembled a panel of four culinary experts to conduct a ‘blind tasting’ of six chickens, each of them roasted to perfection, with the barest of seasoning — just sea salt and some black pepper — and a splash of olive oil.

The birds, which were cooked at 180c for 45 minutes per kilogram, plus an additional 20 minutes, came out of the ovens and were allowed to rest for half an hour.

One of pascal’s chickens was included in the test, along with other expensive ‘slow-reared’ examples produced in UK farms. So, given all our concerns about rising prices, which chicken represented the best value?