[stephen]

i got this link off of the blog 'the edge of nowhere' by malc so i hope you dont mind me stealing it!

http://www.ciwf.org.uk/home/news-tesco-chicken-under-two-pounds.shtml

its about tesco selling chicken for as little as £1.99, you can lobby them using an e-card.

the link explains it all better than me!!!! 

[Francis Bacon]

Hi Stephen,

I've just done my bit even though I no longer live in UK, Tesco has always infuriated me since they bought up all the small village shops in and around our area of Norwich and other area's of the country. They do whatever they please - with or without planning permission    They show little or no respect for animal welfare, British Farmers or manufacturers screwing them into the ground over pricing - Ggrrrrrr  I could go on but I'd better not 

Donna

[Rosey]

My local Tesco has taken off freerange chicken and the labels for them so there are only the broiler ones available. My farmer friend Roy thought they had to sell them off as they had a contract with farmers to be supplied with X amount and since the publicity no one has bought them. 

[rustyme]

Thankyou for putting the link up Stephen....I have sent the e card. The more people that speak up the better. People power really does work. It is just very hard to get most to do anything ...sadly .
 
cheers
Russ

[Guy]

I have to agree entirely with the fact that mass produced birds (and indeed all meat products) result in horrendous conditions for the animals being reared - lets be honest , we all know that and no doubt this fact alone has probably been the reason that so many of us lead the lifestyle we do.
However , I do work in retail and the reason that these products are sold cheaply and in such volume is because that is what the consumer demands.
The conditions that the animals are kept in are indeed poor but these are the conditions that the government say are acceptable. Now i am in NO WAY condoning these conditions nor the defending the percieved supermarkets dominance over farmers , but until the consumer becomes educated in these matters the supermarkets will continue to try and make money in the best way they can.I feel that the only way to take this matter forward is to lobby the government so they ensure that the welfare standards they demand are raised to a sufficently high level.(All pig keepers amongst us will have received the DEFRA info in pig keeping and I was shocked to read through it and see such low  the standards are allowed to be.
I know lots of people are against the supermarkets and the argument will go - if the supermarkets didnt sell these products then people wouldnt buy them- but I believe these issues MUST be discussed in a more government orientated level .
Im sure this view will not be overly popular but i feel this is a valid avenue for change.
Please dont judge me too harshly for my opinions Im personally all for being self sufficent and rearing my animals in a natural and compassionate way       

[Dan]

You're absolutely right Guy, in all realms of business people will push things to the legal limit to squeeze every last penny of profit from the system, and poultry farming is no different. Education the consumer is definitely the way forward - there will always be those who will buy cheap because it's cheap, but there are plenty of people who just don't know how factory-farmed chicken is produced and would be horrified if they did.

What gets me is that if we kept a domestic animal in the same conditions we'd probably be liable for prosecution under the Animal Welfare Act.

[dave1]

I've boosted the numbers a tad.....
I sent an ecard from all of my email addy's   

[pigsatlesrues]

I'm in!

Just written a book to the supermarkets in the hope that changes can be made.

Kate

[Blinkers]

Send my ecard.   

[Malc]

Blimey! Nice to know someone's reading the blog.

Good that people are hopping on the bandwagon, but there's a limit to what the likes of you and I can do to change the way supermarkets are run. Supermarkets will always want to screw prices to rock-bottom and there are a lot of people who are happy to shop there, not giving a monkey's nuts about animal welfare and who probably think that we're all woolly-minded hippies.

Attempts to re-educate will only go so far, in reality touching only the reasonably well-educated, reasonably well-off middle classes. A degree of compulsion is necessary, including tighter controls on the big retail corporations who have done more to stifle real free enterprise than any communist revolutionary could ever dream of.

Send the e-card, great! But now let's all get onto our MPs who may have a moment or two between filling in their expenses and accepting brown envelopes full of cash to listen to what the voters say.

I suppose smallholders are in a good position. Phase 234 of plan F of what we laughingly call 'our project' is to set up a free range chicken run, providing birds for our freezer and for friends. It's not much, but if we all did it. . .

[stephen]

hey malc hope you diddnt mind me stealing the link!! your blog is excellent... always makes me laugh! 

[dave1]

I got a reply today, from someone called Suzi.

Needless to say, we'll all get the same reply or b/s as i called it.
Just lip service, but what else do we expect !
Read it twice & deleted it in disgust.

[TraditionalPigs]

Here in Yorkshire where we are based we encourage all our friends that have land to grow their own chickens for the table. We have been doing this for years and we breed and hatch our own year round. We produce the finest quality free range table birds and we sell growers on to local smallholders so that they can do the same.  Our chickens are fed on mixed corn and 100% natural grower pellets and live a free range life. You can relly taste the difference and I would never go back to buying chicken from a supermarket, commercially produced rubbish that does neither friend or fowl any good.  In fact I recently visited Tesco's to see that they were selling packs of third rate chicken for near enough the same price as the premium breat, these were labelled "Fillets" - The small piece of breat muscle that covers the tendon (usually the bits I cut off our own breast fillets to feed to my raptors!)

Anyone looking for table birds to grow on in or around North Yorkshire get in touch, I have a few hunded left at present and more on the way. This time we will be crossing our table birds with Sasso Cock Birds to produce the finest eating birds ever!

www.traditionalpigs.com