Poultry producers slam RSPCA chicken survey
Claims in a survey that shoppers have switched to buying chicken produced in more welfare-friendly conditions have been described as “statistically invalid” by the poultry industry.
The survey, conducted by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA), follows TV programmes which claimed that much of the chicken meat in Britain was produced in inhumane conditions. Programmes presented by celebrity chefs Jamie Oliver and Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall highlighted the issue.
According to the RSPCA, 73% of consumers said they now bought chickens that have had a better life, since discovering standard chickens were farmed in poor conditions. A similar percentage of people felt supermarkets should only sell higher welfare chicken such as Freedom Food, free-range or organic.
The survey also revealed that 27% of people said they were willing to pay an extra £2 for higher welfare chicken, while 22% were willing to pay an extra £3.
However, Jeremy Blackburn, executive officer with the British Poultry Council accused the RSPCA of incorrectly extrapolating limited data across the whole retail sector. While Blackburn agreed there was an upward trend in consumers purchasing more welfare friendly free-range chicken, he said the movement was far more gradual than the RSPCA was suggesting.
“There has been an increase in free-range sales already,” said Blackburn. But the increases being seen were for a comparatively small part of the market, he added. Sales of chicken were rising across the board, he claimed. He attributed this to the widespread adoption of the Red Tractor scheme, the Assured Food Standards’ scheme designed to raise farming production standards.
The RSPCA launched a campaign in January calling on supermarkets to sell only higher welfare chicken by 2010. It also called for shoppers to buy only free range or organic birds or those labelled Freedom Food - the RSPCA’s welfare focused farm assurance and food labelling scheme. So far 53,000 people have signed a petition, but to date no retailer has publicly accepted the RSPCA’s challenge.
Dr Marc Cooper, an RSPCA farm animal scientist, said: “The results of our poll are extremely encouraging and show that the campaign has begun to make a real difference with shoppers. However, in reality we know that there is not enough higher welfare chicken available to meet the demands of the 70% of people in our poll who claim to buy it.”
Retailers have seen increases in sales of higher welfare chicken since January. But there have also been reports that the same stores have also seen a rise in sales of cheap deals on chickens not conforming to higher welfare standards.
Over 90% of chickens sold in the UK complied with a welfare assurance scheme featuring standards higher than those demanded by the EU’s welfare requirements for meat chickens, said Blackburn. “To some extent the RSPCA is pushing their own brand here and I’m not sure we want to be in a situation where the RSPCA is in charge of any farming sector,” he said.
