hughs chickens and tesco`s

growingafamily

TBH I try and get as organic as I can - some things I won't compromise on.
Since my Mum had treatment for breast cancer it's made me so much more aware of the effect the wrong foods etc can have on your body - the list of things she should avoid was scary !!
All those antibiotics etc fed to broiler house hens worries me a lot !!

davetrousers

SALOPMAN wrote: »

My main gripe is the confusing packaging,I agreed with Hugh that the packaging was very misleading. To see a bird outside with a farmer is very confusing.They should state clearly in English where it is reared and whether it is RSPCA approved or what.

Read my post above No. 11

davetrousers

FZwanab wrote: »

but I don't think I could afford chicken if I had to buy free range to feed all our gang.

The estimate on the show last night was that an RSPCA Freedom Food bird would be 90p more than a intensively reared bird.

katholicos

When i was a kid, chicken was something we looked forward to eating as part of our Sunday lunch, we never ate it during the week. Chicken is now available so inexpensively though and money is so tight for so many of us that we have to make our pound s-t-r-e-t-c-h....and though i like Hugh F-W and support him in this 'chicken' endeavour.... i have never seen a freedom food/RSPCA etc chicken that costs only 90p more than it's factory farmed equivalent in weight.

However, after spending 13 years as a former vegetarian i care very much about the welfare of livestock and i therefore try to shop with a conscience and purchase chicken and eggs that are free range/RSPCA approved whenever possible. In addition to this, we eat vegetable based meals and alternatives to poultry and meat based meals on at least 3 out of our 7 evening meals. Some weeks we eat no chicken at all, other times, we eat 2 chicken meals a week.

I do believe that Tesco treated HFW despicably, i felt that the media representative was obnoxious and surly and that throughout HFW's attempts to meet with those who had authority to implement changes, Tesco handled things decidedly underhandedly.

Tesco should be aware that while they may well be in the lead of the supermarkets at the moment, programmes like the one last night, do reflect badly on them and if they don't provide for the needs of ALL their consumers (not just the ones who continue to support cheap chicken sales) we will send a message loud and clear...one that will be hard for Tesco to ignore, the one hat hits them the hardest...when we choose to shop elsewhere.

HockeyDuo8083

I've stopped buying chicken from Tesco. It's not right, suppliers don't have to rear aniamls this way. All meat should be free range and rspca etc approved.
In this day and age you would think that time would have mopved on?

Ah well, eat scotch beef instead!(said the farmers daughter!lol)

lindab15

Agree totally with what people have been saying here - eat less but better quality chicken.

Tesco came across really badly (and I often shop there and love their clubcard system !) and made me really angry. Bad attitude. I've not bought chicken there in ages, mainly as it's always the cheap stuff they've got on the shelves. Don't really want to boycott them for my other shopping, as I do rely on them a lot and save & use clubcard points, but can feel myself getting ever closer to that stage !!

They won't change until they're actually losing profits. I bet loads of the individual shareholders who voted against HFW, actually pride themselves on buying organic / free range !

Hugh FW's 'Chicken Out' website here asks you to vote for the most misleading labelling on standard, intensively farmed chicken, and also to sign their petition for better labelling.

Beki

I feel so strongly about this i've tried to resist posting... but i can't lol

I think it's disgusting how people still buy intensively reared meat KNOWING the conditions they're raised in. People who don't know about it... well, that's just ignorance through no fault of their own. But people who actually KNOW about it, yet still continue to buy it... well, in my opinion it's dispicable

They don't HAVE to buy it. There's plenty of other ways to get protein (Vegetarians and vegans aren't dropping like flies just cos they don't eat meat ).

How about halving the amount of chicken they eat and upping the amount of pulses... free range isn't twice the price, so in effect they'd be saving money

geordie_joe

katholicos wrote: »

Tesco should be aware that while they may well be in the lead of the supermarkets at the moment, programmes like the one last night, do reflect badly on them and if they don't provide for the needs of ALL their consumers (not just the ones who continue to support cheap chicken sales) we will send a message loud and clear...one that will be hard for Tesco to ignore, the one hat hits them the hardest...when we choose to shop elsewhere.

That sounds good, but the fact is there are not enough people who will do it to make a difference. Very few people care about the chickens. If the other "Chicken/Egg" programs are anything to go by I doubt 5 million people watched the programme.

Of them some won't have been persuaded to change to FR chicken, others won't shop at Tescos anyway. So that won't leave enough to make a difference.

People have said Tesco should listen to it's customers, but the fact is it does. Not only does it listen to what they say, it gathers more information about it's customers than any other super market. No shop knows more about it's customers shopping habits than Tesco, that's why it has grown so big.

It knows the vast majority of it's customers buy cheap chicken, and that is the reason it refuses to stop sellling them.

maltesers_2

Most of the people who have posted on this thread would prefer to buy 'happy chickens'. This is a money saving forum and there are a lot of people who simply cannot afford to buy such luxuries. I would prefer to buy happy chickens but I would not want to make people feel guilty for not being able to afford to. Perhaps this thread would be better in discussion forum or ethical moneysaving.

Applepie_2

On a moneysaving note, if the supermarkets reduced some of the subsidies they apply to alcohol and applied these to free range and organic meat/produce instead, it would provide more people with access to better quality food at more affordable prices.