Free Range Chicken

Essex-girl_2

I am lucky, last night had Tesco's delivery and got 3 free range chickens, they were £7.50 each and when I checked at my local farm shop today they were £11.50.

Rikki

I shopped at Asda today. Not my normal supermarket and there were no free range chickens. Do they sell them?

We_Laugh_Indoors

Yes they are all out of stock as the demand has risen greatly due to the programmes shown on channel 4.

baileysbattlebus

We_Laugh_Indoors wrote: »

I doubt it matters, its not a chicken!:D

Why shouldn't it matter - have you looked at farm reared salmon? Very cheap in the supermarkets - but the flesh is artificially coloured to make it pink.
Wild salmon gets it's colour from eating small crustaceans, the natural colour of farmed salmon is grey. They are deformed and like intensively reared chicken, fat. I would rather eat an intensively reared chicken than an intensively reared salmon.

HappyIdiotTalk

dan1979 wrote: »

Butchers can be quite intimidating with all the choice then they start asking which end you want and confuse you. Buying a chicken should be relatively straightforwards though and as a bonus you can expect to get the giblets in there, I find the neck makes a big difference to stock.

I know where your coming from because up until about a year or so ago I'd not been in a butchers since I was a kid either, and felt just like you that they were intimidating. But now I'm in there all the time and will never go back to supermarket meat EVER!

If your worried about them asking which end/cut you want, try turning the tables on them and tapping their experience and knowledge. Just tell them what your doing and ask them to recommend something. ie Whats the best beef for beef burgers, what the best cut for a steak sarnie, I'm making a stew what have you got for that and whats the difference... Which lamb so I need for stovies... or even just 'What on earth do you do with that?'.

Honestly if you get to know your butcher they are great. Mine have given me loads of advice and help, I even got them to teach me how to joint a chicken... try that at your local supermarkey. And they've even given me one of their old knives which they ground first too (and its brilliant by the way)!

And best of all the quality and taste is leagues ahead of the supermarket, which I now avoid with a passion. Eeck prepackaged nastiness... it turns my stomach.

If your still wary, perhaps break yourself in gently, just pop in and buy some bacon, sausages and the chicken and build from there as you build up your confidence and relationship!

Good luck!

HappyIdiotTalk

What I really meant to post was this link from the chickenout.tv campaign site. Found it in the forum yesterday and thought the reasonaning made some sense:

http://www.chickenout.tv/forum/comments.php?DiscussionID=841&page=1#Item_0

I really feel there is no need to magic up sinister underhand campaigns by supermarkets to massage the chicken sales figures....I think there is an inevitable and logical reason for it.... I posted this last week in another string (now closed and sinking) but I still feel it is valid....

I wonder if there is really a very simple reason for less FR chicken being available in the Supermarkets.....We all know there is a limited number of FR chicken farmers in the UK....up until six weeks ago they were marketing a minor niche product and were probably happy to accept the stupidly low prices the supermarkets were paying for a limited order level of birds. Suddenly almost overnight the product they grow is in massive demand...so which of these farmers is going to continue selling to the supermarkets? Think about it.

....


The supermarkets are really going to be struggling to even maintain their previous FR level over coming months, let alone increasing it. This will not change for MONTHS until the current FR farmers greatly increase output (which has been geared to previous demand up to now), and more producers decide to go FR and can make the changes necessary.

So yes our eyes are probably not deceiving us....there ARE LESS free range birds on Supermarket shelves....but the supermarkets are not to blame....they are not doing it deliberately.

I think he's got a valid point. Fortunately my butcher seems able to get hold of a few each week from Hereford. I buy one a week and have a backup in my freezer.

I wonder if even these stocks will run out? :think:

We_Laugh_Indoors

baileysbattlebus wrote: »

Why shouldn't it matter - have you looked at farm reared salmon? Very cheap in the supermarkets - but the flesh is artificially coloured to make it pink.
Wild salmon gets it's colour from eating small crustaceans, the natural colour of farmed salmon is grey. They are deformed and like intensively reared chicken, fat. I would rather eat an intensively reared chicken than an intensively reared salmon.

That was actually my point, people only seem to be interested in welfare of chickens but not any of the other animals we eat for food.

This is because the media have brought chickens to the attention of the masses, otherwise most people would not think twice.

I agree that battery farming is a horrible method and would prefer everything free range, i would just like people to also consider the welfare of other food animals that have not been shown on the telly.

crystalsinger

We are very lucky to have a farmers market every saturday just down the road. If you are intimidated by butchers, try one of these if you can find one locally. Lots of specialist stalls, locally sourced, they know their own stock, the prices are not as high as you would think. I would suggest setting yourself a budget, as its so lovely its easy to overspend.

triage999

I am finding the increase in prices for FR absolutely ridiculous! Went into Tesco on Sat and they were £10!!

I have also been made me aware of how many chicken products these supermarkets sell, none of which are free range, and I reckon that 3/4 of their food stock in a supermarket is from poorly looked after chickens!

Such as

Pies
Chicken dippers - In various forms
Kievs
Tinned chicken
Scotch eggs - From battery hens
Egg mayo sandwich fillers - Battery hens again
Pizza
Own brand Takeaway chinese/curry are almost all chicken based!
Deli meats/chilled slices none of which are FR
Pate
Pastes
Frozen chicken products - Legs, Wings etc

I have decided now that fish is cheaper to buy these days compared to meat anyway, this used to be the other way around!

I maybe have meat once a week now.

workinmummy

Went to Sainsburys on Saturday, and only having been lucky once in my weekly attempts at getting a free range chicken (tried sainsburys and asda) - since the Hugh campaign. I was gobsmacked to see a large number of Corn Fed Free Range Chickens on the shelves. Some were even marked down to £2.50 (for 1.5kg bird) best before date was the next day. On closer inspection these Free range chickens were French not British. So it looks like Sainsburys have done something to keep up with the demand, they have imported.......