As purse strings tighten in 2009, the NFU is keen to reassure consumers that whatever British chicken they buy it will be reared to world leading welfare standards. To help inform consumers, new footage showing indoor reared birds is being published on the Great British Chicken web site.

The film features Norfolk farmer and NFU poultry board vice chairman, Nigel Joice, who takes viewers on a tour of Uphouse farm near Fakenham, where he keeps 800,000 broilers, making it one of the country's largest indoor operations. He supplies five million birds a year to the UK market, most of which end up on the supermarket shelves.

The timely filming comes as Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's new programme, Chickens, Hugh and Tesco Too, airs on Monday [26 January]. It follows TV chef Hugh in the 12 months since his 'Chicken Out' campaign aimed at improving the welfare of chickens.

NFU poultry board chairman, Charles Bourns, who converted to the RSPCA Freedom Foods label last year, took part in the Channel 4 programme and is keen to stress that consumers' need choice to match a range of budgets, when buying both chicken and eggs.

"British chicken producers do a great job in providing consumers with the things they want to eat, affordable products reared to high standards of animal welfare whatever farming system is used," he said.

"This new film helps show the industry at work, rearing chickens, and we will continue to work hard to meet consumer demands. We as British farmers will also ensure that consumers, whatever their budget, have birds reared to the highest welfare standards."

If consumers want to be certain that the chicken they are buying is British and meets those high welfare standards, lots of useful information is now available on the Great British Chicken web site, including advice to help consumers decide which chicken to buy and details on what the Red Tractor logo means.

Further Reading

-

You can view the Great British Chicken web site by clicking here.