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Western Morning News
Friday 11 January 2008
Carol Trewin
Two of the region's leading meat businesses have added their voices to the debate over chicken welfare.
"This is a hugely important moment for the industry," said butcher and farmer Peter Greig. "It seems no one else is prepared to put a brake on the process. Having this debate now is the best chance the British poultry industry has of mapping out a sustainable future. Otherwise within ten years there will probably be no mainstream poultry producers left."
Mr Greig, founder of Pipers Farm which has a butcher's shop in Exeter and a thriving national meat mail order business, is one of two Westcountry businesses that have spoken publicly about the need to improve the standards to which broiler chickens are produced. He took part in the recording of the Jamie Oliver programme, Jamie's Fowl Dinners, to be broadcast tonight on Channel 4. "I was impressed that Jamie seemed to understand the implications for the farming industry in this country of the relentless industrialisation of chicken production. The future cannot be constantly cheaper food. The programme helps explain the implications of this to consumers."
Mr Greig, who acted as a consultant and stockman on the programme, is not the only local food business to join the debate. Andrew Maunder, commercial director of Lloyd Maunder, Britain's biggest specialist chicken producer, was filmed for Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's three-part series, Hugh's Chicken Run and also took part in the Jamie Oliver programme. This week he challenged consumers to put their hands in their pockets for the sake of better chicken welfare.
"The industry is only able to produce what people are prepared to buy. We need consumers to take responsibility for their food choices and shift from buying on price to buying on welfare," he said. "A Freedom Food chicken only costs around a quid more than a standard chicken, which means people who buy it can have peace of mind without breaking the bank."
Jamie's Fowl Dinners is expected to continue the controversy started earlier this week by Hugh's Chicken Run. Both chefs share the same view that for chicken production standards to improve, consumers should pay more for a standard, indoor reared chicken. However while Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall takes the supermarkets to task, Jamie Oliver takes a more inclusive approach blaming governments, consumers, retailers and farmers.
"The point has been reached slowly over many years so it has gone unnoticed - people selling chickens 20p cheaper, [battery hen] cages getting a few inches smaller," he said. "We've reached a point where people expect to be able to buy a chicken for £2.50, when really it should be at least £4."
At the same time new research has revealed that the majority of consumers have little idea of the conditions in which chickens for the table are produced. A survey for Freedom Food, the RSPCA's higher animal welfare system, found that 91 per cent of consumers admitted that they knew little or nothing about chicken farming.
Leigh Grant, chief executive of Freedom Food pointed out the inconsistencies in consumers' attitudes to broiler chickens and battery eggs: "It's bizarre that whilst a growing number of people are refusing to buy eggs from hens kept in cruel cages, not nearly so many people insist on higher welfare chicken - yet they are the same species. If you insist on non-battery eggs, you ought to insist on higher welfare labelled chicken like Freedom Food too." More than 37 per cent of eggs sold in Britain are from either barn systems or free range, neither of which use cages for the laying hens. More than 90 per cent of chicken for the table is produced in intensive systems, only 6 per cent being free range.