News

Charity Compassion for World Farming has waded into the food labelling debate by running an online poll to "ensure honest labelling" for chicken, coinciding with a TV programme featuring celebrity chef Hugh Fearnley-Wittingstall.

The online poll, which will feature on Fearnley-Wittingstall's Chicken Out campaign website, calls on consumers to vote for "the worst chicken label among a selection from UK retailers" and runs until 1 February.

The goal of the campaign is to ensure chicken meat is labelled in the same way as eggs, which shows whether the product comes from caged, free-range or organic hens.

The British Poultry Association, meanwhile, told Packaging News consumers were becoming increasingly interested in knowing where all their meat came from, but that the programme gave chicken "a higher profile".

"There is a desire for a deeper understanding of the provenance of meat, but people don't necessarily understand what the labels mean," said BPC executive office Jeremy Blackburn.

Blackburn said the BPC had tried to increase people's knowledge of the Red Tractor and Freedom Foods labels, but asserted that most farmers "produce to three or four different standards".

He added that, while there had been an increase in the sales of free range chickens as a result of Wittingstall's campaign last year, chicken sales had, in fact, increased across the board.

Fearnley-Wittingstall's programme Chickens, Hugh and Tesco too airs tonight at 9pm on Channel 4.