Labour shortages have also had a catastrophic impact on the poultry industry. One farmer, Rod Adlington, told the BBC in October he’d had to raise the price of his chickens by eight per cent as a result of staff shortages in his factories. “We’ve never ever had to put through a price rise before,” he said, “but if we don’t make these changes, we just won’t be here in six months.”
Inflationary pressures aside, some say it’s high time we started to pay more for our chicken. “How can it be right that a whole chicken costs less than a pint?” 2 Sisters founder Ranjit Boparan (dubbed “the Chicken King”) asked the BBC.
He isn’t wrong – while the current price for a “standard” 2kg chicken hovers around £3.10-£3.50, a pint of beer outside London averages £3.80-£4.
The days of low prices are, quite simply, “coming to an end”, said Boparan, adding “transparent, honest pricing” was now needed in the face of rising costs.
Jane Howorth, founder of the British Hen Welfare Trust, says if we want to support British farmers and encourage ethical production methods, we need to pay more for our chickens and eggs. “In the UK, we don’t value our farmers and the food they produce highly enough,” says Howorth.
The past year has been particularly hard on poultry farmers, she says, as a fierce outbreak of avian flu meant they were forced to keep 35 million hens indoors for fear of losing entire flocks. Defra ordered the hens into lockdown in November after the “largest ever” bird flu outbreak in the UK. Poultry farmers were permitted to continue calling the eggs they produced free-range for 16 weeks, even though the hens were inside. But since last Monday, the eggs had to be marked “barn eggs”.
Farmers had hoped the lockdown would end this week – but Howorth says Defra are “still very hesitant” as new cases are still being found, causing many to speculate if we might be at the beginning of the end for British free-range eggs altogether.
Last year, almost two-thirds of the 11 billion eggs produced in the UK were free-range (up from 27 per cent in 2004). But if year-round bird flu outbreaks threaten to keep hens inside more permanently, free-range chickens and eggs may be a thing of the past.
“It’s been a very unfortunate year for the entire country,” says Howorth. “[…] There’s no doubt that the free-range sector does not want to keep its birds inside. But they are doing so for their own good, because avian flu is so lethal, and because it’s not good for business.”
Vaccines, she feels, could provide an answer: “Birds already have a whole gambit of vaccinations against salmonella and others. That is par for the course, [and] avian flu is devastating.”
France, which has suffered nearly 1,000 outbreaks this winter, has been trialling a vaccine. But, much like with Covid-19, the numerous variants of avian flu makes it difficult to vaccinate against. Covered outdoor areas have also been floated as a possible solution, though it might be a hard sell for consumers who tend to have an image of free-range birds frolicking over rolling pastures. “There are some farmers that do it brilliantly,” says Howorth. “I’ve seen hens in cherry orchards, and it’s heaven.”
Whether your Sunday roast this afternoon features a £4 bird or a £50 one, spare a thought for the poor hens. They’ve been in “cluckdown” almost as long as we were in 2020.
