Poorly chicken

[Louise]

There's a Faccenda in Banbury - I won't go near it - truckloads of chooks go in....

 

Sorry, not for me, if I'm not happy with its provenance then I won't eat it.

 

Just what I was going to say Clare

 

I used to pick up meat from that faccendas and I would not be impressed with it either

[The Dogmother]

I may be mis-remembering here, but I think it was the focus of a health scare a while ago.

[WitchHazel]

Call me nieve, but surely if they wernt Barn rearing their hens and were using less human methods they wouldnt make a point of lying about it by producing an ethics statement like that, they would just say nothing at all.

 

Hi Cat

I completely accept what they say in their ethics statement, that they are Barn rearing their hens. However, "Barn Rearing" doesn't have one standard definition. It just means that the chickens are in a barn, not in battery cages. In the best Barn systems, the chickens have enough space to stretch, flap their wings and roost. In the worst, they don't have space to do anything.

 

The words that Nandos use in their statement are very encouraging, because they specifiy that they feed GM free foods and don't use growth promoters. But they do stop short of saying anything about space for chickens to carryout normal chicken behaviour. This omission may be because they believe it's implied in their other information, they may not have thought about it, or it may be because it's not true.

 

With Corporate speak I've learnt not to infer anything beyond what is actually stated.

[Louise]

Meat birds are never reared in battery cages they start off as small chicks and grow and grow the bigger they get the less space they have - draw your own conclusions

[buffie]

I agree with Cat here, and like with the BHWT, and gentle, supportive approach sometime works wonders.

 

I try to support locale, non-chain restaurants. Our local Wetherspoons is a dive and the food is pants too.

 

Wetherspoons is all free range egg though Clare Perhaps mention to head office.

 

BBx

[Guest]

and as to the halal meat I don't have a problem with it.....i've watched goats being slaughtered this way and they were well cared for and did not seem distressed by the process.......it's a different way of life and we should respect that.

 

veterinary evidence and evidence from CIWF seems to suggest otherwise (see the link I posted) that is what concerns me. If the experts think it's cruel then I'm erring on the side of caution by not condoning the practice.

 

I do respect other cultures but I don't have to agree with or even like some of their customs so, as I said, I would choose not to eat there and that's my choice.

 

I wouldn't presume to tell anyone else what they should do or what they should think.

[Guest]

I've eaten in Nandos before, ie before I had thought about keeping chickens, and I've always found the food to be very tasty.

 

I've emailed them and sais I was pleased to read that their chickens are kept in well ventilated barns etc, I described what the BHWT says a Barn chcicken should be able to do, and asked them whether this is true of their chickens. I've explained that I now keep chooks as pets and this has made me much more aware of the issues around chicken welfare.

 

If it turns out that their chickens are kept relatively humanely then I'd like to support them, and if they don't then I won't go there at all. In either case I will write (not email) to let them know, as customer feedback (and spending/not spending) is the only way to encourage "good" organisations and discourage "bad" ones.

 

I appreciate your point Claret, that truckloads of chooks go into Faccienda. I'm not surprised though. Let's say that 40 million of the 60 million Brits eat chicken just once a week, and let's say they all eat quarter of a chicken (not just the breast meat). . That's 10 million chickens A WEEK that are consumed. And of course many people eat only breast, many people eat chicken more than once a week, so goodness knows what the real figure is.

 

Thanks very much for your replies so far, I'll let you know what they say.

 

when you get your e-mail reply and you write your letter, I'd write directly to the chairman/MD of the company.

 

I always do this and I've always had a better, more prompt response than

addressing it to 'customer services'.

 

Even though I wouldn't eat there, I'm still very interested in their response.

[The Dogmother]

Wetherspoons is all free range egg though Clare Perhaps mention to head office.

 

BBx

 

Thanks Buffster, I didn't know that. I've only ever eaten there once about 2 years ago and the food was so horrid (and the table sticky) that I haven't set foot in there again.