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From The Sunday Times

January 6, 2008

Jamie Oliver is back on the warpath - this time over Britain's taste for cheap chickens

Jon Ungoed-Thomas

On a bright, cold morning last autumn, Jamie Oliver arrived at a farm near the Blackdown hills in Devon. There he was led into a dimly lit shed containing more than 13,000 chickens destined for supermarket shelves.

Inside was the intensive production line of one of the staples of modern Britain – the £2.50 table chicken. Thousands of chickens genetically designed to grow into full-size birds in just five weeks were huddled together. There were no windows or places to perch or bales of hay to peck.

The chickens, produced at a nearby hatchery, would be fed intensively until they reached slaughter weight. Each day workers would remove the birds that did not survive.

Oliver emerged into the glare of daylight shocked by what he had seen. It was, he later said, “morally wrong” that animals were being treated in this way.

On Friday the footage at the farm will be used to spearhead Oliver’s latest crusade – a drive to improve the welfare of the 860m chickens reared in this country every year. Oliver, who has already tackled the government over school dinners, will appeal to the country to buy happier chickens.

“If you’re used to buying a nonfree range chicken, trade up £1 or so to an animal with better living conditions, like natural light and stuff to do,” he said last week. “It’s morally better for the animal and morally better for the producers.”

The RSPCA last week weighed into the debate with advertisements to coincide with Oliver’s campaign, which is one of a series of food programmes on Channel 4, including an experiment by the chef Hugh Fearnley-Whitting-stall comparing different ways of farming chickens.

Oliver and the RSPCA want to see chickens given more space to roam and the use of slower-growing breeds. Even those who draw up the basic standards for most of the country’s chickens agree that welfare standards can and should be improved.

Oliver hopes that this week’s campaign might be the catalyst for an upheaval in the market similar to that already seen in egg production, where the use of hens kept in conventional cages is being phased out. Can his charm prevail over our liking for such cheap meat?

THE Ross 308 is the brand name of one of the most commonly eaten chickens in Britain; it is testimony to the genetic ingenuity of the industry. The Ross 308 “model”, developed for rapid growth, comes with its own 24-page instruction manual and is one of the fastest-growing animals on the planet.

According to the manual, it will hatch at under two ounces, but will double its bodyweight in less than three days. It will have doubled in size again by the end of the week and within a fortnight it will have doubled again, weighing in at just over a pound.

Compared with the chickens that roamed the farmyards in previous generations, or even the slower-growing birds used today on free range and organic farms, it is a veritable colossus. It will reach a suitable kill weight of 4lb within five weeks, about double the growth rate of a chicken in the 1950s.

Such birds are also engineered to supply the British love of chicken breast. Creators of the Cobb 500 - a rival model to the Ross 308 - boast that it has increased breast yield from each carcass from 14% in 1987 to 20% today. But campaigners for animal welfare say that such accelerated growth rates put an intolerable strain on chickens.

“Their hearts and bones are still immature,” said Marc Cooper, senior scientific officer for the RSPCA’s farm animal department. He added that many of the birds – known as broilers in the industry - die from heart failure or suffer lameness.

A government-funded Bristol University study published in 2006 found that more than a quarter of chickens in commercial flocks had moderate or severe leg disorders that impaired their ability to move. It means that more than 200m chickens a year suffer from lameness and in the worst cases can barely move at all to get to water and feed.

“The consumer isn’t aware of what’s going on,” said Rowan West-Henzell, food policy manager at Compassion in World Farming.

“People have been told that chicken is a cheap and healthy option, but not about the reality of production.”

Oliver hopes that his programme, Jamie’s Fowl Dinners, will persuade consumers to change their habits. “I think if even a small percentage of people watching were informed and decided to shop differently as a result, then that would make a real difference,” he said last week.

“If the industry is keeping everything behind closed doors, it’s my duty to take the information to the public to let them make their own choices.”

At present, most broiler producers abide by the rules set by an organisation called Assured Chicken Production (ACP), which sets the minimum standards required by supermarkets and uses a red tractor logo.

Under these standards, the fastest-growing birds can be used and the permitted stocking density is 38kg per square metre, equivalent to about 19 chickens per square metre. It permits a mortality rate of up to 5%, which means that in some of the largest units - containing 30,000 or 40,000 chickens – up to 2,000 may perish.

Professor Sir Colin Sped-ding, chairman of ACP, said last week that he believed the standards adequately protected the chickens’ welfare when properly implemented, but they could always be improved. “ACP has more than 90% of the broiler producers as members and when we change standards it shifts the whole industry,” he said.

“But it has to be done on the basis of science and not force the producers to move faster than the economics allow.”

The RSPCA insists the industry needs to change faster. It has different standards under its own Freedom Food label which stipulates the use of slower-growing birds, a stocking density of 30kg (about 15 chickens) per square metre, and the inclusion of perch space and bales of hay to peck.

A Freedom Food chicken costs only about £1 or £2 more in the shops. But producers are reluctant to raise standards, unless shoppers are prepared to pay more, because their margins are so thin.

It costs about £1.20 to rear a standard broiler, including 24p for the chick, 70p for feed, 4p for labour and 3.5p for building maintenance and repairs.

Farmers say the profit margin on each bird is only 2p or 3p. More space for the birds and slower-growing animals come at a price - and that has to be picked up by shoppers.

Andrew Maunder, commercial director of the Devon-based Lloyd Maunder, which is one of the supermarkets’ largest suppliers of organic chickens and which allowed Oliver to film its broiler flocks, said: “We produce standard, Freedom Food, free range and organic chickens. We are open about what we do and the customer makes the choice. I could change all my standard chickens to Freedom Food standards tomorrow, but if people won’t pay the extra money to buy it I’ll go bankrupt.” ON Friday afternoon Stephen Howard, 41, from Balham, south London, was shopping at Waitrose for an organic chicken which cost £15. He never buys chicken produced to the minimum red tractor standards.

“When you actually see what they’re like you would never, ever buy or eat chicken that’s come from one of those farms,” he said. “It’s partly a question of the wellbeing of the birds, but also the birds taste so much better if they are well looked after.”

Sarah Ryan, 38, a mother of four, said it was sometimes difficult to put animal welfare before financial considerations. “You do wonder why the normal stuff is so much cheaper,” she said.

“The reality is that people have to look for value for money and you don’t think too much about where food comes from. It’s all very well for people like Jamie Oliver to say we should spend more to get better food, but he can afford to have high principles.”

Nevertheless, Leigh Grant, chief executive of Freedom Food, believes that raising standards is achievable. Freedom Food chickens account for 5% of fresh chicken and the proportion is rising.

Oliver has already been credited with improving the quality of school dinners - although some pupils are said to have given up school meals as a result - and the experience of other countries suggest that he could also enjoy success in his chicken campaign. In France free range chickens - known as Label Rouge - account for about 30% of the market.

With the consumer tide apparently turning in favour of animal welfare, Oliver may have picked the right moment to take up the cudgels. It will probably mean more expensive chicken for all of us - but we would eat better for it.

Your label guide: what the types mean

CHICKEN

Standard or supermarket own brands
Cheapest chicken in the store. Uses fastest-growing breeds and a high stocking density. Birds often suffer damage to legs and skin

Freedom Foods
The RSPCA label restricts the growth rate of the bird to reduce the chances of lameness and heart defects. The chickens have a bit more room, perching space and even get footballs to play with. But they are still kept indoors all the time

Free range
Allowed access to the outside - often in woods, fields and meadows - and have significantly more room. But they can still be given chemically treated feed and are reared en masse in sheds

Organic
The blue-bloods of the chicken world. They are reared in small flocks, can roam across the pasture and are given organic feed. Likely to peck quite a large hole in the wallet

EGGS

Standard eggs
The notorious “battery” hen laying standard eggs is typically kept in cages stacked in three tiers. They live in a space about the size of a piece of A4 paper. Laying hens often have part of their beak cut off to stop them pecking other chickens

Barn laid
Instead of cages, birds are given a series of perches and feeders but they have no outside access. The maximum stocking density is nine hens per square metre. Accounts for about 7% of the British egg market

Free range
Chickens are given access to the outside for at least eight hours a day, though they can still be kept in giant flocks of up to 16,000. Sales have rocketed in recent years

Organic
The birds are kept in smaller flocks, typically 2,000 or fewer. They are given organic feed and have access to open-air runs. But the eggs are expensive and remain a niche market

For the best local produce in your area visit the Times Real Food Directory

We have just bought pet chickens - around 3 months ago. They are so lovely and such happy creatures. Just sitting on a sunny morning seeing them scritch and scratch and pet around and enjoying life makes the plight of the battery hens even more real. We bought two at first and now have seven and they mix well with our 7 dogs. I love them and the eggs are so different. They make excellent pets for children and every house should have one. I LOVE CHICKENS!

Linda Rupniak, Northampton, UK

It is a chicken, it is food. Once it appears in you butchers or supermarket, plucked, gutted and laid out in front of you. How are you going to tell what sort of life it had and what it ate?

steve, chester, cheshire.

Cheers Jamie,I'm a butcher in Sussex and this weekend we have company for Sunday lunch. I forgot to bring the meat(lamb) home for lunch ,so had to "nip" to a supermarket to buy some. something I have never done in my 47 years as a butcher. I went to 3 shops in 2 towns,total distance37 miles! Apart from a few skanky bits of beef and some Newzealand lamb,these stores were full of PLASTIC CHICKENS!

Nice one!
Keep up the pressure
C.Hillary

Chris Hillary, Mayfield, East Sussex

We pride ourselves in being a nation of animal lovers, with various groups devoted to tackling animal cruelty and many of us welcome 'pets' onto our homes and would punish anyone that brought them harm. Surely we are not THAT far from civilization that we can overlook the chickens welfare to suppress our greed. I have been a vegetarian for months now and I take vitamins which are half the price of what your meat for one meal costs. I am very healthy too. Who said you must eat meat? it;s a WANT not a NEED When people claim animals were meant for 'slaughter' because the Bible says so, how many of your follow biblical teachings and always consult with Christ's word before you do anything?

It seems we only take the negative aspects of the Bible and follow then through. Did they have a wide variety of foods other than meat in those days? Did our cavemen brothers go out to Tesco & bring back chicken in a pack?

My tesco was sold out of Free range chicken today. Bravo Jamie & Hugh

Lyndsy , antrim, Northern Ireland

i'm on the dole but i afford it. if i can't i have veggies instead

john, leeds,

"If youâ€™re used to buying a nonfree range chicken, trade up Â£1 or so .." O K Jamie, for someone with the income to make such a choice. But pensioners like myself are not alone in trying to eat healthily on a very restricted income, especially as that income is being eroded further year after year, by the false 'inflation rate' on which successive Governments use to limit increases in pensions.

S Barraclough, Huddersfield, W. Yorkshire

I completely agree with Chris from London! To say 'Oh, it's alright for Jamie' is a lazy reaction. Buy one less drink at the pub and spend the money on a free-range chicken.

Kate Caplin, Caversham,

Well done Jamie Oliver. The man deserves a knighthood.

Toby, Oxford, United Kingdom

There is no better book that deals with this very issue (along with arms dealing, NHS privatisation etc) than "What a Carve Up" by Jonathan Coe. Deals with it in a murder mystery type set up - absolutely hilarious. I always marveled at the hypocrisy of the anti-hunting groups - what is the difference between hunting and killing any meat for human consumption? Or are all anti-hunting groups vegetairan by definition? I don't participate in hunting but what I have seen (TV footage, photos etc) on abattoirs and these mass killing factories have upset me far more than seeing a few dogs massacre a fox. Also see the film "Fast Food Nation". Set in the US but gives you a very hard glimpse of how the meat we eat ends up from cattle farm to our plates. Basically all the stuff we don't want to know / choose not to see.

Brian Browne, York,

Eating meat each day is a luxury not a right. If you cannot afford to purchase food that is ethically produced then change either your eating habits or look at other ways to find an extra few pounds a week. I am quite sure a large proportion of those people complaining that free range meat is too expensive will find enough money to purchase junk food, Sky TV, cigarettes and beer. If purchasing of non essential items is more important then the welfare of animals then I would argue this more is about greed and then affordability.

Chris, London, UK

Get out of the supermarkets and in to the greengrocers, butchers, and markets, where the price of food meat and veg is well below the giant's prices. It IS possible to eat well and cheaply if you do this. I found i saved a bundle. Not only was the produce cheaper, but there was no being tempted by treats i didn't 'need'.

caroline wookey, Ilminster, Somerset

If you pay peanuts you get monkeys, and the same goes for food. As so many people in the US, UK and around the world are eating less healthily and getting fatter, money spent on quality rather than quantity can't be a bad thing. What's more, an apple a day keeps the doctor away, so they say and eating less meat is usually recommended by all.

David Brown, Barcelona,

I've always prefered fish to chicken, because they free-roam
our oceans. Fish having an even lower saturated fat content than chicken, together with their richness in the essential Omega Oils, make them excellent for the BRAIN and the HEART.
I make a point though of buying (or catching) my own fish, examining their eyes as they lie gutless on the pristine green marble slab of my fishmonger. I'm very wary of buying on days when I notice spangled scales and pink blood stains on his apron. Its an excellent source of protein, but it helps to be an informed consumer

C Markus, Glasgow, Scotland

We are having chicken this evening, Chicken Tarka,
It's very similar to Chicken Tikka, but 'otter.

Nicholas Halsey, Silkeborg, Denmark

C Markus, Chicken Run-on-tyne, Greenland

C Markus, Glasgow, Scotland

I think that I am rather ignorant to what happens to my food before it ends up on my plate. My views are changing a lot since forcing myself to watch the programmes. I would really like to know about how other animals are farmed and the best place to buy all kinds of animal products. As a student, I would not be able to afford organic very often- but I think I will try to do without until I have more money. When I have a bigger garden, I would like to try and keep my own chickens. I wonder if local organic farmers would be more affordable - but I guess that affordable and ethical don't really go hand in hand ...yet.

Carly Brummitt, Grantham, Lincolnshire, England

Now, assuming that we no longer have "standard" chicken in favour of free range, then less chicken will be produced. This will drive price of chicken up... (law of demand and supply) and more and more of the poor will not be able to afford to eat chicken anymore. Just imagine... how many can afford 20 quid for a bird?

Darren Young, London, UK

At last people are seeing on telly what's been happening behind closed doors for years and years!
We can only progress one step at a time, and as far as I'm concerned, Hugh & Jamie have pushed public awareness onto that one first step. Most vegans started out with choosing free-range eggs - in this imperfect world we can only aim for perfection but help each other along as we go!
Happy New Year!

Liz Parkhurst, Barnsley, South Yorkshire

I think jamie is right that the chickens are over fed to get in to the certain weight which is cruel and they should be fed naturally rather than chemicals
mo stoke on trent

mo, stoke on trent,

Regardless, it's still just a chicken. With a lifespan of 5 weeks, who cares?!

Besides, how does what's his name feel about VEAL ?! Yummm.....!!!!!!

Scott, Durham, NC, USA

at first glance, it's great - someone cares for animal welfare and stuff. but, at the end of the day, isn't it cynical? the animals - and cows, pigs, hens, turkeys et al. are all equal to me in their conciousness and range of sensations are able to experience - are STILL killed! no matter how humanely the life is being taken, it's still being taken.

Jamie is a nice bloke, but he needs to lose weight.

Tim (vegan for 4 years), Moscow, Russia

Mr Oliver is a publicity seeking, opinionated buffoon devoid of contact with reality. Its fine for such privileged, not to mention wealthy, people as Mr Oliver to preaching, perhaps he should descended from his pedestal and see how the real world operates! One might have thought he would have learned from his last disastrous campaign on school dinners, sadly not.

Chris Newman, Southampton,

Chris from Bristol, that is easily the most fascinating comment on any article I've ever read.

P.S. Can't wait for tonight's dose of Hugh!

Pete, Chester,

It never ceases to amaze me at how utterly dim the general public can be, only a few seem to care about where their food comes from.
It isnt until someone in the public spotlight spearheads a campaign that people actually notice the world around them. Mass poultry farming is one of the most unhygenic and in-humane ways of meat production. this includes duck and turkey.
Hopefully this will kick start care about food, and also actually make the RSPCA actually monitor their so called freedom farms properly.

fiona stuart, nottingham,

Better still go vegetarian

bondy, London,

Want to prove that you love animals and care about their welfare? Don't eat them!

It's just plain wrong to enslave or take another sentient being's life just to fill a dinner plate.

Furthermore, there hasn't been enough coverage of the UNâ€™s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) report linking meat eating with environmental destruction. According to the FAO, the arm of the UN that works on initiatives to fight hunger worldwide, animal farming presents a â€œmajor threat to the environmentâ€ with such â€œdeep and wide-rangingâ€ impact that it should rank as a leading focus for environmental policy.

The report also calls the livestock sector a â€œmajor playerâ€ in affecting climate change through greenhouse-gas production. The FAO found that the ranching and slaughter of cows and other animals generates an estimated 18 percent of total human-induced greenhouse-gas emissions globally.

Rachael S, Oxford, UK

I applaud Jamie Oliver for bringing to the public's attention the dreadful way that chickens are 'farmed' or more correctly 'factory farmed'.
Societies 'hunger' for cheap meat os at the essence of the problem ... and as a nation of 'animal lovers' it is a bit surprising that most peoples morals are mostly in their stomachs. Sadly, they forget that these are living, breathing, feeling, sentient beings, that bleed and are capable of a whole range of things that we have (as Henry Beston claimed) "...long forgotten or never attained..."
Try going veggie - your body will thank you and the chickens certainly would.

cath hurwood, Hereford, U.K.

Jamie Oliver should join Jeremy Clarkson in running the country. Then we could be proud of our politicians, our people, our lifestyle and our morals.

Paulo, Milton Keynes,

Chickens have been treated with contempt by the vast majority of the population for years. Now it's high time things changed; we never buy battery-hen eggs and never buy supermarket chicken, and we're not wealthy people.....budget properly,---stop buying alcohol and wine, you don't need them--- and you can then buy decent food.
Perhaps the mother of four children should have had fewer children, and kept her foodbill down.

chris, Bristol,

Jon Ungoed Thomas should at least do some basic research before he parrots what the RSPCA tell him.

Just take a look at how RSPCA Freedom Foods animals are kept as discovered by Hillside.

http://cheetah.webtribe.net/~animadversion/freedomfood.htm

The RSPCA campaign has nothing to do with animal welfare and everything to do with the posturings of a business trying to muscle the opposition aside.

Lets hope the shoppers don't fall for it or more animals will suffer on Freedom Foods farms and guess what, no-one will be prosecuted.

Nick, Birmingham UK,

I am pleased that the inhumane conditions in which chickens are kept and the suffering they have to endure (and this applies to other livestock) is being publicised. Compassion in World Farming has been "on the case" for forty years and I have the feeling that this is another Jamie Oliver beano. Why has he advertised for Sainsburys all these years if he is concerned with animal welfare? Why stop at chickens? Transportation of live lambs and calves; turkeys and ducks kept in sheds: pate de foi gras; non organic farmed fish etc..etc. I sincerely hope that some good comes out of this and that due credit is paid to compassion in World Farming and that people will shop ethically.

Heather Harrison, Hinchley Wood, Esher, england

We are retired now and are living on a fixed income. However, I always buy organic eggs and milk and any produce I can find. In my opinion, the extra money will either go into my stomach or in my doctor's wallet. I prefer eating food produced in a healthier manner so as to keep me healthy in the long run. People who think they are getting a bargain will only pay for it later in poorer health for themselves and their children.

claire mckenna, north arlington, usa/ nj

Mrs Thatcher's deregulation of abattoirs led to abatoir waste being turned into cattle feed. And BSE. Has everyone forgotten that deregulation leads to battery raising of animals for cheap food?

Jane Fleming, Whittlesey, CAMBRIDGESHIRE

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