Tesco has come under fire from animal welfare and farming groups for the slashing the retail price of its standard whole chicken to just £1.99.
Jonathan Church, a spokesman for the supermarket giant, said the reduction from £3.30 for a standard whole bird would benefit “shoppers on a budget” .
“No one should feel guilty for buying a chicken just because it is good value. The only reduction we make is in the price – not the welfare,” he added.
But animal welfare groups have criticised the move, arguing that the discount undermines their efforts in getting consumers to pay more for poultry that has been reared in better conditions.
The special offer chicken from Tesco comes just a month after celebrity chefs launched a campaign against factory-farmed chicken, which exposed the inhumane conditions that chickens are kept in.
But data from UK supermarkets suggests the Channel 4 campaign, led by chefs Jamie Oliver and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstal, has not put British shoppers off cheap chicken .
On the contrary, Tesco said their sales of standard chickens since the programme had risen by 7 per cent, although sales of higher welfare chickens had been an even greater success and now made up 30 per cent of its chicken sales – an increase of 70 per cent.
A Tesco statement said: “We are making it easier for customers, whatever their circumstances, to buy great value and fantastic quality chicken, safe in the knowledge that it would have been raised in the highest welfare environment .”
The RSPCA last month urged retailers to stop selling cheap chicken meat from birds reared in poor conditions and said supermarkets should drop standard chicken completely in favour of free-range, organic and Freedom Food varieties.
The National Farmers’ Union (NFU) said the move is “extremely ill-judged and short sighted”.
“They’re devaluing the product and doing it at a time when, overall, the market is strengthening and chicken prices are rising,” a spokesman said.
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