Year: 2009

Free-Range Chickens

Since I’m pretty much vegetarian, an issue like free-range chickens doesn’t often get my attention.  Honestly, animal welfare is always in the back of my head somewhere, but not a top priority.  Free-range or no, there’s little chance of me eating a chicken, unless it was raised by a friend, but really I’m not very likely to eat chicken at all.

In fact, I should make clear to people reading this who don’t already know, the term ‘free-range’ has very little meaning when it comes to chickens.  Here in the Netherlands free-range is exactly the same as standard factory farm chickens except for half of the life of the chicken, it has to have the ability to walk outside if it wants to.  So free-range chickens have the benefit of a little door on the side of their factory farm enclosure, but the breed of chicken involved is not predisposed to wanting to go outside anyway.  Even if it did, the area outside is generally only large enough for a very small percentage of the birds, should a number of them choose to go outside all at once.  Not really a big improvement over standard chickens, and not a reason in my opinion to pay any extra for.

In fact, during bird flu outbreaks, all chickens here are required to be kept indoors, so the doors on these free-range farms have to be kept closed.  In order to protect the ‘investments’ of farmers who maintain free-range farms, these chickens are allowed to be labelled and sold as free-range chickens even though they are never allowed outside!

Bird Flu

I’ve posted before a couple of times about bird flu, in 2007 and 2008.  The most important thing to understand about bird flu is the public is being lied to and given a distorted picture of the situation.

We are all told that wild migrating birds and privately held small outdoor flocks of chickens and other fowl are to blame for the bird flu problem, as they are what causes the spread of bird flu.  These outdoor birds are quickly targeted during bird flu outbreaks, as a means to contain the situation.  Especially in developing countries, small farmers and families trying to support themselves often pay a heavy price as their flocks are destroyed without any compensation paid.

The truth of the matter is large factory chicken farms are very unsanitary, and breeding grounds for diseases like bird flu.  Not only has nearly every outbreak of bird flu been tied to a particular factory farm, but once an outbreak occurs the logistics of managing it are mind boggling.  Bird flu spreads very quickly, and factory farms can have in excess of 100,000 chickens.  Once a farm becomes infected, these birds have to be killed and destroyed in order to prevent further spreading to animals and people.  Killing this many birds so quickly is a huge undertaking, and is very dangerous for the workers involved.  This generally involves burning the birds, which can have a big impact on nearby air quality.  In all it’s a dangerous, tragic and wasteful situation that no one wants.

The Food Fight

As we come up on bird flu season again this year, there’s a really interesting battle taking place in the UK.  Hugh Fearnley–Whittingstall, himself a celebrity chef and chicken raiser, has teamed up with other celebrity chefs in the UK to try to get the worst factory farm chickens out of the supermarkets.  He is proposing the minimum standard for supermarket chickens should be that set by the British RSPCA.  Hugh himself admits he would not eat chickens raised to the RSPCA standard, and it’s only a little better than standard factory farm chickens, but besides quality the cost difference to the consumer is not great and farmers are better paid for this type of bird.  The RSPCA standard is undeniably an improvement, and an important place to start.

Last year Hugh was successful in getting most of the large UK supermarkets to stop carrying the worst of the factory farm chickens, with one important exception.  The largest UK supermarket chain Tesco continues to offer their so-called Value line of chickens.

Tesco’s position is basically they feel many of their customers want inexpensive chickens, and so are serving their customers wishes.  Hugh has pointed out a number of problems with this argument, for example when their stores offer alternative products they are often sold out, Tesco’s marketing of the chickens includes things like a picture of a farmer standing outdoors and the company has a policy statement on animal welfare that is inconsistent with the way their Value line of chickens is raised.  How can consumers express their preference for the type of chicken they buy when there are no alternatives and there isn’t accurate information available?

For more than a year now Hugh has been trying to arrange various meetings and on camera interviews with people at Tesco, but this has met with very limited success.  Finally he used a technique apparently borrowed from Michael Moore, someone I greatly admire, and Hugh purchased 1 share of Tesco stock.  This gave Hugh access to the shareholders meeting.

Further, after obtaining the signatures of 100 other shareholders, he was able to oblige Tesco to hold a special vote on a proposal of Hugh’s.  Hugh proposed Tesco should either stop selling their Value line of chickens, or change their animal welfare statement to accurately reflect how these chickens are raised.

Tesco put a couple of last minute obstacles in his way.  They said he would both have to get a 75% yes vote for the measure to pass, and he would have to pay the equivalent to about US$100,000 for the cost of mailing the voting materials to the shareholders.  Tesco gave Hugh two days to raise the money.  While Hugh could have paid for part of the costs himself, he launched an Internet appeal and raised all the money from personal donations.

Hugh lost the vote, getting roughly 10% saying yes.  Since a further 10% abstained, this left 20% of shareholders refusing to back the position of the company.  This was a large enough figure that Hugh finally got Tesco’s attention, and the meeting he’s been trying to arrange for more than a year now has been scheduled.  Tesco is finally willing to talk to Hugh!

To sign up as a supporter and/or view some the of the past episodes online, have a look at Hugh’s Chicken Out website.

Even if you aren’t interested in UK chickens, this whole debacle offers fascinating insight into the unsavory business practices of food giants like Tesco, and is really an excellent example of the true price of cheap supermarket foods.  Every country has their own Tesco, in the US Walmart could be compared to them.  Understanding how these retail giants work is important for everyone.

If you live in the UK, think twice about shopping at Tesco!