Free Range Chicken

Olliebeak

nooksky wrote: »

When I watched Hugh's programme, what it reminded me is how we have come to treat chicken as an everyday food and not as a treat these days.

I always remember when my mum gave me some 'normal' chicken breasts backalong and at the time my dogs were poorly so I cooked them up for the dogs and gave them chicken and rice for dinner which is supposed to help. When mum asked if I had eaten the chicken and I told her what I had done with it she thought that was a real waste of chicken as in her day it was a real treat to have chicken and they would not have it very often as it was expensive then.

I think now we just expect to have it regularly and we need to re-educate ourselves that it is better to pay more for a free range chicken and have it less often.

I grew up in the 50's living with grandparents and we weren't very well-off. Usually on a Sunday, we would have lamb or beef and occasionally pork. Chicken was real treat and sometimes we actually had a large one (or a capon - castrated male chicken) for Christmas. We also kept hens, so lots of fresh, free-range eggs. Now and again there would be a hen for the pot but these were classed as 'bowling fowl' as they were usually around 2-3yrs old by then.

JoeyEmma

I was in the supermarket the other day. There were 2 girls talking really loudly about how they couldn't possibly eat battery chickens after they watched Hugh's Chicken Run and the poor cute little things and oh isn't it terrible what they do to them. Anyway, I saw them at the checkout with their battery farmed chicken breasts!

They looked like students and the fussy types that would only eat chicken breasts and clearly wouldn't pay that little bit extra.

competitionscafe

HappyIdiotTalk wrote: »

So it looks like I'll have to teach myself how to joint a chicken for myself.

The first bit of this video gives quite a good demonstration of how to joint a chicken:
http://www.crashtestkitchen.com/?p=75

Paulie'sGirl

Can I add another vote to buying from your local butcher, not a supermarket.

A decent EBLEX standard butcher will be able to tell the provenance not just of his chicken, but of the other meats he sells. Yo'll also likely find he makes his own sausage and cures his own bacon.

www.bigbarn.co.uk is great for finding your nearest producer

Like many, I distrust supermarket meat after too many bad experiences, and now I eat less of a better quality, using OldStyle tricks to make less go further. Its better for us anyway...

PG xx

SparciaM

I went home for the past two weekends and couldn't find a single free range chicken in tescos.

They had there £1.99 chickens and the £9 Organic free range, but no normal free range chickens.

Here in manchester, I used to be able to get a normal free range chicken from Tescos for aruond £4/£5, but now they only have £1.99 chickens and £9 Organic free range chickens.

Why have Tesco stopped stocking free range chickens? You'd think with the chicken campaign they would give customers choice, but it looks like we have no choice anymore over bird welfare.

I now have to go to my local market to get a free range chicken as can't get any (apart from an Organic free range) in Tescos.

Is this happening where you are as well? I asked instore why this is and they just replied saying that they found that consumers want price (ie cheap chickens) and they now stock more of that variety than any others.

We_Laugh_Indoors

Everyone wants free range at the minute 'cos they saw it on the telly'.

I think once the media attention dies down hopefully the people who have always bought them will be able to do so again,

SparciaM

My point is you can't buy free range unless you want Organic from Tescos.

They have decided to only stock cheap chickens and organic, no normal free range.

Badger_Lady

I would presume they're out of stock - demand has increased beyond supply, and it will take a while for the Supermarkets to catch up again.

You may find that they end up stocking more free range than anything else in the coming months, because they'll be flying off the shelves (not literally, dead chickens ain't great at flying).

Ishtar

They've run out of free range chicken in our local Tesco and as I refuse to buy anything else I haven't had chicken for weeks now. And before anyone points out that I could use the butcher, ours is a 'craft' butcher who charges way, way over the odds for anything (£5/lb for pork sausages anyone?).

Interestingly, their cheap chickens don't seem to be shifting at all, even though there's no free range available. Well, either that or they're selling really fast and the stock is being replenished quickly....(somehow I don't think so).

I think it's great that there's now such a demand, whether that's a short-lived thing or not. And the next time Mr Tesco says 'there's no demand for free range' or 'our customers demand cheap chicken' then we'll know they're embellishing the truth.

D.

We_Laugh_Indoors

SparciaM wrote: »

My point is you can't buy free range unless you want Organic from Tescos.

They have decided to only stock cheap chickens and organic, no normal free range.

I'm sure nothing like this has been decided, normal free range chickens are largely in demand partly for the reason i stated earlier.

Maybe the supermarkets hope people will buy the organic ones, however with a product that has the high demand of free range chickens do at the moment the supermarket would be mad to not stock them at all.

It is likely that there are supply shortages.