Hugh’s Chicken Run

The journey takes him far from the cosy lifestyle of River Cottage and into the harrowing conditions of running his own modern poultry production line. Hugh plans to kick start a chicken revolution in the UK. He wants to replace the cheap chickens sold by supermarkets at less than a price of a pint of beer for ethically reared free-range chicken … His plan is that for one week, more than 50% of chicken bought and consumed in Axminster is free range. That includes curry houses and burger bars, ready made sandwiches and pub lunches. At the moment, less than 5% of the chicken sold in the UK is free range so it’s a major undertaking (Source: Anon nde np link).

Last night, in the first of three episodes … he set out his various ideas about how he might wean people off low-cost poultry, arguing that ‘if consumers knew what it took to produce chicken so cheaply, they would refuse to eat it’. His challenge in the series is to educate the local people without making them feel like they are being patronised. The latter is something that shows like this always struggle with, because they are patronising by nature, and it is to Fearnley-Whittingstall’s credit that he grasped from the start that showing people rather than telling them is the best approach. By happy coincidence, that is the most telegenic approach as well, and it inspired a gratifying number of different and interesting ways of going about the mission. The inspirations behind his techniques were not hard to discern. Early attempts to tackle shoppers in the car park at Tesco, and ask them how many actual-size plastic chickens they felt should be placed in an actual-size one-metre-square wooden pen, were reminiscent of Janet Street-Porter’s interventions about free-range veal on Gordon Ramsay’s The F Word. Likewise, in another prong of his attack, it was easy to spot the influence of Jamie Oliver’s assault on Britain’s school dinners. Fearnley-Whittingstall’s involvement last night with the women who run the canteen in Axminster Power Tools, the town’s second-biggest employer, was an obvious homage. His idea was to get the women to stop serving up microwaved frozen omelette, or bought-in cottage pie, and cook free-range food themselves instead. Rosie, the canteen’s chief caterer, said she was frightened of roasting chicken, for fear that it wasn’t ‘cooked properly’. But when the sudden appearance of expensive chickens, beautifully roasted, packed the usually languishing canteen with happy eaters, delivering bigger profits than usual, she professed herself a convert. Rosie had never tasted a free-range chicken herself, and was much surprised by its far superior flavour, which certainly indicates just how little the middle-class obsession with fresh organic ingredients has penetrated the mainstream (Source: Orr 2008, p.22 link).

[He then] sets out to expose the evils of factory farming, only to find that factory farmers refuse to show him around their operations. Undeterred, he decides to set up his own farm – half intensive, half free-range – with the aid of a maverick chicken farmer from Northern Ireland (Source: Newsome 2009b, p.30).

Intensive birds may be crammed together at around 19 per square metre, but their drink dispensers must be spotless and there are strict rules to be followed … He provides his free-range chickens with straw bales for shade, miniature footballs to kick and CDs to peck (Source: White 2007 np link).

The life of a British factory chicken looks horrific – … they live just 49 days from the egg to the slaughter and never see sunlight. They get just half an hour of darkness a day because artificial light keeps them feeding. They’re allowed their 30 minutes of night only because any less would have them dying in uneconomical numbers (Source: Newsome 2009b, p.30).

Any bird that seems to be struggling is immediately killed (Source: White 2007 np link).

[He is] reduced to tears as he does the rounds of his squalid, stinking, overcrowded shed, snapping the necks of sick or undersized birds. Later Jamie Oliver drops by and learns that factory chickens spend so long sitting in their own faeces that the ammonia in their poo burns through the skin on their legs. Disgusting (Source: Newsome 2009a, p.30).

As Fearnley-Whittingstall gets his own house of horrors up and running, he has his first go at what will become a daily chore – snapping the tiny necks of sick or undersized chicks (Source: Newsome 2009b, p.30).

At one point .. [he] cries because he cannot face killing another bird (Source: White 2007 np link).

Later Jamie Oliver drops by and learns that factory chickens spend so long sitting in their own faeces that the ammonia in their poo burns through the skin on their legs. Disgusting (Source: Newsome 2009a, p.30).

He reluctantly set up his own factory … and ended up disgusted by the appalling conditions under which 95% of British poultry is reared (Source: Anon ndd np link).

During his … shows, residents of the Devon town of Axminster were invited to see [these] free-range and intensive systems running alongside each other … ; many left in tears (Source: Hickman 2008 np link).

Another of Fearnley-Whittingstall’s lines of attack involved persuading people on the local estate to start caring for chickens themselves, on some disused allotments. This approach nodded to that of Monty Don, the media gardener who tried to show in another series that working the land was spiritually enhancing enough to help rehabilitate drug addicts. The people attracted to the project were by no means drug-addicts. On the contrary, the group self-selected as highly motivated can-do types. Yet they, the women particularly, seemed unaware of the paradox involved in being very overweight and at the same time insisting that without cheap food they could not survive. It was on the allotments that the human-interest quotient of the show was at its highest. Here were people seizing with both hands the opportunity to do something they’d never had the chance to do before, and rising wonderfully to the occasion (Source: Orr 2008, p.22 link).

It was a mark of the self-consciously high standards of Hugh’s Chicken Run …, that Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall … bothered to meet Hailey, even if he did not reveal to us her surname. The Old Etonian lives in the pastoral fat lands of Dorset, the single mother on the wrong side of Axminster, Devon, in the Millwey estate, where to spend £6 on a better-bred chicken counts as profligacy. ‘This is real life,’ admitted F-W as he drove to where he had never driven before to share with the locals his contention that Tesco’s bargain chickens were bad news for the chickens and not necessarily great news for Millwey’s tastebuds either. Initially, Millwey seemed unlikely to care. We saw one of its residents prepare his £2.50 chicken in the traditional way: hack it to bits, shovel it on to a plate, cover dish with dissolved Oxo cube. And this was one of Millwey’s better meals. … Hailey was not, however, going to have her buying habits patronised and fired both barrels at Hugh’s double-barrels. ‘What,’ she demanded, ‘should we call you? Hugh or Mr Fearnley-Whateveritis?’ (Source: Billen 2008, p.19).

Hugh’s Chicken Run clearly adopts this format as Hugh conducts his ‘experiment’ about how to raise awareness of the relationship between chicken production and consumption with the residents of Millway. In contrast to the rural idyll of River Cottage, for this experiment Hugh heads to what he calls ‘the tough end of town’, given visual reinforcement with repeated shots of grafitti-covered signage. ‘This is life, this is real life’, Hugh tells us, where people are ‘struggling with their food budget’ and ‘either didn’t know or didn’t want to know about the grim life of cheap chickens’. Hugh’s experiment starts off well – the residents work with him to clear a local allotment where they plant vegetables, raise their own chickens and establish a sense of community. It quickly becomes clear that one ‘local’, Hayley, is the key ‘ordinary woman’ of the series: a single mother who adopts a ‘mother hen’ role in organising her neighbours on the allotment, Hayley is adamant that she cannot afford free-range chicken. The series is set up on the promise of her transformation into a ‘good’, moral and ethical consumer. Except the narrative begins to fall apart. While all the other Millway residents increasingly accept Hugh’s point of view, Hayley works tirelessly on the project but refuses to change her mind or her shopping practices. When Hugh takes the residents to view the ‘reality’ of cheap chicken production in an intensively reared chicken shed, most cry and accept the legitimacy of his point of view. However, Hayley refuses to be shocked by what she has witnessed and refuses to be positioned as ignorant of food production – it is, she informs Hugh, what she expected. Soon afterwards, we witness Hugh weeping over the battery chickens, demonstrating his empathy with their situation and his willingness to care about animal welfare and take responsibility for changing it. But Hayley reiterates throughout the series that she is a ‘single mum’ whose primary responsibility is to care for her family through budgeting wisely (Source: Bell & Hollows 2011, p.187).

Near the end of the final episode we encounter Hayley for a final time, buying cheap chickens during Hugh’s ‘free-range week’. Hayley recognises her positioning by both Hugh and the camera, saying ‘Don’t look at me like that’, to which Hugh responds: ‘I am going to look at you like that. Of course I’m going to look at you like that after everything we’ve been through’. In this final encounter, Hayley accepts the legitimacy of Hugh’s middle-class gaze, saying: ‘Yes and I agree with it but this is all I can afford at the moment’. And for a second, speaking to camera, Hugh realises the limits of ethical consumption: ‘Back to
reality. Mums like Hayley, tough budgets, kids to feed, two for a fiver, what are you going to do?’. In showing a degree of empathy with Hayley, Hugh demonstrates an understanding of the ‘ordinary’ while at the same time marking his distance from it. Although this ‘reality’ is quickly forgotten within the show, it none the less gives space for a perspective that is lacking in both conventional green lifestyle programmes and some recent critical work on ethical consumption: that class matters (Source: Bell & Hollows 2011, p.188).

Hayley’s refusal to make the ethical choice marks her out as self-centred and lacking moral worth. This also works to devalue the reasons why she privileges budget chicken over chicken welfare. She continually states that cheap chicken enables her to feed her family; to perform the caring work then enables her to be recognised as a good mother despite her ‘single-parent’ status …; but the programme refuses to accept these traditionally feminine forms of caring, privileging instead a less gendered form of caring as civic and environmental responsibility (Source: Bell & Hollows 2011, p.188).

Hayley bristled with martyrdom, claiming that Tesco’s two-for-a-fiver broilers were all she could afford. … When Hugh spotted Hayley loading the trolley in Tesco on the final day of his week-long ‘Chicken Out’ campaign to turn Axminster into a free-range town, her self-righteous pleasure at his evident disappointment told us a great deal about the feisty, funny but also rather angry Hayley (Source: Flett 2008, p.2 link).

By the final episode, Hayley has largely disappeared from the narrative, but a host of other voices begin to challenge Hugh’s point of view as a classed point of view as he takes his campaign to the streets of Axminster as part of ‘Chicken Out Week’. An encounter with one woman in the street sees Hugh become increasingly angry as he is accused of being ‘elitist’ and of ‘guilt-tripping people’ – a film about chicken production, shown in the working-class space of a local pub, meets a chorus of disapproval. The campaign nevertheless builds to a moderate success and Hugh is cheered by the fact that when faced with the ‘reality’ of intensive chicken production, ‘the effect on many was instant conversion’ to free range; but he was also ‘beginning to realise that there were some people who would never change’ (Source: Bell & Hollows 2011, p.188).

[T]hroughout the series Hugh battles to gain meetings with supermarkets to ask them to change the ways in which their chicken is produced and to offer more free-range chickens. In this way, the show does not simply target individuals to take ‘responsibility’ for the problem through their own moral choices, but also emphasises how large supermarket chains exercise control over and are responsible for food production (Source: Bell & Hollows 2011, p.186-187).

The three-part series Hugh’s Chicken Run aired in the United Kingdom in 2008 as part of Channel 4’s two-week season of food programming, The Big Food Fight. While Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall has made other series attempting to make over people’s eating habits – most notably River Cottage Treatment (2006), which aimed to transform a series of convenience food ‘addicts’ by teaching them about the production and preparation of food – Hugh’s Chicken Run fitted the template of the Channel 4 campaigning culinary documentary which had a precedent in Jamie’s School Dinners (2005). These shows are structured around a problem-solving format and mark a shift in lifestyle programmes wherein celebrities seek to utilise their status to affect change (Source: Bell & Hollows 2011, p.186).

Fearnley-Whittingstall, 42, said he had first become aware of the scale of death in the industry when he worked with a maggot farmer in Essex who used dead chickens from a poultry plant as feed. ‘This guy was taking delivery of truckloads of dead birds for his maggots, and at that point I realised the true story of the poultry industry was quite shocking,’ said Fearnley-Whittingstall (Source: White 2007, np link).

[Whittingstall] ‘There were certainly moments of doubt, especially about creating our own intensive chicken farm,’ he says. ‘On different days there were different anxieties. On the one hand I was doing the opposite of what I would normally do when raising chickens. For me, putting in an order for two-and-half-thousand chicks and knowing they weren’t going to have a very nice life felt very weird and paradoxical and of uncertain outcome. But I also wondered whether the intentions behind it would be understood or whether people might have thought it was an over-dramatic or attention-seeking or gratuitous way to approach the issue.’ … Chicken Run was a gamble. ‘We’re not the first people to have looked at the poultry industry and thrown up our hands and asked consumers: is this really what you want to eat? But in the past, it’s tended to be current-affairs documentaries with clandestine filming, programmes of a sort that either people find too dry or that they deliberately shut out because they don’t want to know. Or they do know, but it washes over them: they think, ‘It’s not relevant to me and my chicken in my supermarket because I’m sure they’re quite nice.’ I think that by personalising it, and by me being quite affected by it at times, makes it clear that it absolutely is relevant to you in your supermarket if you buy that kind of chicken’ (Source: Seal 2008, p.18 link).

I was an industrial chicken farmer. It was not a happy experience. Stepping into the dark, musty shed, the whack of ammonia was overwhelming. I always checked the stock with a knot in my stomach, hoping I wouldn’t find a dead bird. Or worse, an injured bird. Then you have to wring its neck. It’s a good day, and a rare day, that you’re not dropping a little feathered corpse into a bin. I set up this experimental unit for a Channel 4 programme, Hugh’s Chicken Run, because it was difficult to find intensive farmers who would give us unfettered access in order to film. Raising intensive chickens went against my deepest instincts, but my hope was that these birds would be agents for change. That was in January, and since then I’ve been trying to persuade people to eat more free-range chickens – or at least upgrade to a higher welfare standard (Source: Fearnley-Whittingstall 2008a np link).

…did I really have to start my own intensive farm to get people’s attention on this (yes, I did); did we misrepresent the industry by treating our birds worse than they do (no, we absolutely didn’t)? … I have met people at both ends of the economic spectrum who don’t give two hoots about the suffering of chickens. I have also met (and in the past couple of weeks had many letters and emails from) mums, dads, students and workers from cities, towns and villages all over Britain, telling us how tough it is to feed their families on a tight budget – but nonetheless pledging their support for our campaign. A number of them have asked us to send a clear message to those who criticise our campaign as elitist or economically unrealistic: they don’t want to be patronised and insulted by the sweeping assertion that they are part of a socio-economic group who can’t afford to care. They have seen how these birds are treated, and they no longer want any part of it (Source: Fearnley-Whittingstall 2008b np link).

Since you are a vegetarian, you are in NO position to speak for people who are not (Source: @SpeccyMan 2021, np link)!!!

I don’t know why he isn’t telling the people in the housing estate to breed the chickens then eventually there chickens for eating will be cheaper than 2.50 and eggs aswel instead of giving them a once off (Source: @nancyjason8159 2019, np link).

good job hugh! i grew up raising our chickens,free range, its much cheaper here in our country to raise your own chicken than to buy from big supermarket. and we have fresh eggs daily from our chickens (Source: @coralineblue9195 2014, np link).

No excuse for buying poor quality unfairly treated meat, i buy mine from local butcher but most weeks we have meat once a week in our house !! Its a luxury so i dont mind paying extra knowing the animal had a healthier happier life and also tastes better so well worth it (Source: @rosieravenclaw1521 2022, np link)!!

Somewhat surprisingly, the cream of Britain’s TV chefs have spent the week torturing and murdering chickens. Having pioneered expensive food in their restaurants, they now want us to eat expensive food at home as well, and this week Jamie Oliver and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall have between them spent four and a half hours on television haranguing us about the need to buy £7 free-range chickens for humanitarian reasons (Source: Pile 2008, p.18 link).

It was not a good idea to promote dearer food when people are already feeling the effects of rising food prices because of the current economic situation (Source: Reid in Wilkes 2008 np link).

When I watched Hugh’s programme I thought the single mother had a point when she said the battery chickens were all she could afford. At the end of the day farmers have to make a living, it is a vicious circle (Source: Barker in Fairhurst 2008 np).

I won’t eat those chickens [I’ve reared], said the crying woman. Buuut I’ll buy it already killed in a plastic wrapper from Tesco. People are so dislocated from where there food comes from (Source: @donnyjay9046 2021, np link).

I’ll bet Hayley would be the first person to complain if she was subjected to the living conditions that these chickens are subjected to (Source: @cozygreys5873 2019, np link).

one beer less and you can feed your family ….. where is the problem … are our priorities  wrong (Source: @tonyhudspeth3861 2014, np link)??

I only buy free range and I am a single mother. Got nothing to do with it. Perhaps she can buy less biscuits etc and put that money towards a free range chook (Source: @Annie1962 2017, np link).

may possibly be true but no need to be catty, she was very brave to get involved. with so many armchair critics watching (Source: @Tubecraft1 2019, np link).

I can sort of understand the woman who is OK with the intensively farmed birds. She has been taught that if you have very little money, you must get MORE for your pennies. Instead, she needs to learn that if you have very little money, you need to learn how to get the BEST for you money, which is not the same as MORE (Source: @antfiresbetter 2015, np link).

If you have little money it means exactly the same. Free range chickens, free range eggs, bio veggies etc. they’re all three or four times more expensive than regular products. If you have no money it means wether you’ll be hungry or not. In that case BEST means MORE (Source: @mayczos2029 2016, np link).

Like any mother, I care about what I feed my family, but watching Hugh’s Chicken Run on Monday night really stuck in the throat. The posh double-barrelled one went beetling down in the Land Rover from his delightful farm to the local council estate, where he set the ignorant natives straight about their nasty poultry habit. One resident had bought two cheap chickens from Tesco and made himself a roast dinner with too egg-centric vegetables. It looked delicious. But no, Hugh was on hand to point out that paying less than four quid for a bird was shameful and morally indefensible. Really? I bet I wasn’t the only one who cheered when a single mother murmured that Hugh had some nice ideas about animal welfare, but he should try feeding a family on her budget. In an ideal world, every chicken would be raised in the sun-ripened pastures of South- West France with its own Jacuzzi and personal acupuncturist. But, back here on earth, many hard-working mums have to decide whether their families matter more than their feathered friends. If it’s miracles you want, try pulling a wishbone, boys. In the meantime, please stop ladling out the guilt (Source: Pearson 2008,  p.15 link).

AGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH Hugh you really get up my nose! IF people could AFFORD to buy free range organic chickens they would but the simple fact of the matter is some people just don’t have the financial freedom to allow them to make the choice! In most cases I don’t think it’s that people don’t care it’s a matter of not being able to afford to care. Before my partner was made redundant I could quite happily put free range and organic products in my trolley but these days I really have to watch what I’m spending so if that means buying 2 chicken for 7 quid then that what I’ll do ! You make me (and probably thousands of others) awful that I’m contributing towards battery farming etc but until the supermarkets bring their prices down I’ll continue buying cheap chicken. We’re in a recession and unemployment is sky high so campaigns such as these are a tad insensitive …before long I won’t be able to afford to buy a bloody chicken whether its intensively farmed or not (Source: SJJ1977 2009 np link).

ANGRY Hayley Cross has cried ‘Fowl!’ at posh telly chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall for portraying her as the villain in his TV campaign against factory-farmed chicken. Single mum Hayley-a fan of the cheap two-for-£ 5 supermarket birds accused this week’s three-part Channel 4 show, Hugh’s Chicken Run, of editing footage to make her look BOSSY and SELFISH. She said: ‘I’ve been completely stitched up by Hugh. Everything I said was twisted to turn ME into a hate figure and make HIM look good.’ Horrors. Hayley claims she was punished for challenging Eton-educated Hugh’s bid to convert us to the free range, £8-a-time chicken he sells and complaining that millions on low incomes can’t afford it. As part of the show, mum-of-two Hayley, 36, agreed to rear free-range hens on an allotment with neighbours from the Millwey Estate in Axminster, Devon, where Hugh runs his organic farm shop. They were shown the horrors of cramped factory farm conditions and signed up to raise, kill, cook and eat their own birds. But viewers were stunned when Hugh caught Hayley in the local supermarket shoving the cut-price intensively reared meat into her trolley. Internet chatrooms were hit with comments like: … ‘She’s horrible.’ Hayley, who broke a pact only to buy free-range over Christmas, hit back: ‘I’m on a very low income. I claim housing benefit. I can’t splash my budget around. I’m not against Hugh. I’m 100 per cent FOR his campaign. But I just can’t afford to be part of it’ (Source: Constable 2008, np).

Single mum Hayley Cross – dubbed ‘Mother Hen’ on the show – has endured internet name-calling and derision after admitting on screen that feeding her family is more important than the way chickens are reared. The 36-year-old part-time secretary said: ‘Hugh is a lovely bloke and it must have taken great guts for him to do what he has done. But I knew from the start that I would be presented as a standard bird-eater and that Hugh was there to convert me. But he didn’t manage it. People aren’t seeing the whole picture. Even though I back Hugh’s campaign one hundred per cent I can’t afford to back him financially. I’m a single mother on a low wage just like thousands around the country. Feeding my children is my main concern. If the prices were reduced I would be there at the till with my freerange chicken.’ Fearnley-Whittingstall, 42, took families from the Millwey estate to a battery farm to show them the conditions in which chickens are reared and was horrified when some told him they would carry on buying by price. Axminster councillor Doug Hull, who represents the 2,500 residents, said: ‘The feeling here is that he has blown it and has over-egged his case. He has upset a lot of people by talking about Millwey as the rough end of town. It is most unfair and a lot of very nice people live there. But we live in Devon where the take-home pay for lots of people is not that great.’ For many Britons, the humble chicken is now their major source of protein, a fact that has seen them farmed on an industrial scale (Source: Winter 2008, p.39)

… by taking Chicken Run to an estate on his local town of Axminster where he set up a free-range chicken run with the locals, he was taking the argument to people who didn’t feel they could afford free-range chicken. ‘Animal welfare isn’t a class issue, or even an economic one, it’s an ethical issue and people on a very low income have ethics. We’ve had some amazing letters from people on income support, who are jobless, or who are single mums, saying, ‘Don’t let anyone tell you that people with no money don’t care about chickens.’ I had one in my hand this morning, saying, ‘I have to feed my family on £35 a week, but I still wouldn’t dream of buying an intensively farmed chicken’ (Source: Seal 2008, p.18 link).

The thing is, it’s very easy to mount one’s high horse on a topic, but it can be somewhat more difficult living up to such high aspirations. For example, my wife and I decided not to eat battery farmed chickens a while back, and we have been enjoying the superior flavour of free-range birds since. It’s easy to make an informed choice when buying a whole bird, but what about all the other chicken products you might buy? Chicken escalopes, chicken kiev, chicken roll for sandwiches, chicken soup, pre-packaged sandwiches, et al. Are we really to assume that free-range meat is being used to make any of these products? Probably not. The packaging certainly doesn’t tell you (Source: Hurst 2008 link).

Long time ago and the only time I signed on for benefits. I was sent to work on a chicken farm. I lasted about half a day and the cruelty nearly broke me. I was close to punching people out! Thing is I grew up in the wilds of Shropshire. We raised and ate our own food. I have to admit that town living and cost considerations, I was buying cheap meat. Thanks for reminding me of the cruelty and most of all, the taste of proper meat. So yes, it’s costing me a lot more, but I am a decent cook and I use everything. So now I eat less meat and more veg. But It’s healthier and tastier. I have reconnected with how my meat is produced and just as important, how it tastes.. thank you Hugh I really needed this series.. Oh yes, by the way, made me cry too. Some of the tears were due to shame (Source: @madmick9205 2023, np link)!

What particularly outraged chicken farmers was Fearnley-Whittingstall’s claim that he had had to build his own factory farm because no poultry farmer would let him any closer than the end of the phone. ‘You’ve got chicken farms with barbed wire all around them, which is not necessary to keep the birds in,’ he said, in justification of his gimmick. The claim went down particularly badly with the Devon poultry company Lloyd Maunder, which subsequently revealed that the chef had spent three days filming at farms, including an intensive unit, where the company’s commercial director, Andrew Maunder, had engaged in a ‘robust debate’ on camera with the campaigner. When the show aired this week, all that footage had been cut and no mention was made of Lloyd Maunder’s contribution. Channel 4 claimed that the sequence was cut because Lloyd Maunder also took part in another of its programmes, Jamie’s Fowl Dinners, shown last night, and that the footage was held out of the Fearnley-Whittingstall programme ‘to avoid repetition between our respective programmes’ (Source: Vallely 2008, p.46 link).

‘You have to bear in mind that Hugh failed the inspections from the Assured Food Standards when they came to inspect his farm before his TV programme. They found serious shortcomings. His farm was not a commercial entity in the sense that it would have been allowed to sell any chickens to any organisation, including Tesco.’ The source added: ‘He’s not whiter than white on this.’ In the Hugh’s Chicken Run series Fearnley-Whittingstall created two chicken units in Devon, one an intensively reared farm and the other free range. The mass produced birds suffered high rates of defects such as leg burn and had to be culled in greater numbers (Source: Prynn 2008 np link).

Peter Bradnock, chief executive of the British Poultry Council, criticised the documentary as ‘seriously flawed’… ‘Hugh’s farm was not of the same standard as a typical indoor poultry farm. ‘His shed was totally substandard. It was not a facility which anyone in the industry would attempt to grow chickens in. ‘Clearly he was not interested in displaying realistically the quality of stockmanship and management that is required’ (Source: Delgado 2008 np link).

This winnet [went] and bought sh#t chickens (Source: @paulleggatt67 2022, np link).

Throwing those chicks out of those boxes the way you did paves the way for leg and wing issues. Try being a little more patient with them releasing them from the mail boxes. It’s your investment you are crippling (Source: @dianeveilleux6452 2019, np link).

in all fairness Hugh, you are supposed to turn the litter over regularly and there should be ventilation in there. your experiment is flawed and it kinda puts a fly in your ointment (Source: @brianmooketsiseabela8702 2015, np link).

How can the standard chicken industry ever be portrayed in a “good light”? That just seems impossible to me (Source: @sarahblaquiere3121 2020, np link).

The British Poultry Council has come out and said that they think it is misrepresenting the high standards in modern British Chicken farming. ‘Poultry houses are scientifically designed and equipped to ensure the ventilation and other needs of the chickens are properly provided for. It is highly scientific that the temporary premises used to rear chickens in the experiment failed to obtain Assured Chicken Production certification, and the apparently poor welfare outcome is not unexpected’ (Source: Davies 2008 np link). 

Not all ‘conventional’ chicken is equal, either.  Some producers are very conscientious, keeping the top layer of bedding fresh and dry, which minimizes amonia and odors – and keeping the birds both happier and healthier.  Others don’t even bother to remove the dead chickens.  Inspectors are sometimes bribed, or things are ‘prettied up’  for inspection day.    Feed & other aspects of care are dictated by the chicken packers/processors – who will NOT buy or process chicken or other poultry for small farmers – or anyone except those either raising chickens for them under contract OR under their rules, on their feed.  Just another advantage of de-centralizing US food production – along with food security – would be to revitalize rural communities by supporting small family farms NOT through tax dollars, but by returning market access to them, and removing the essential monopoly enjoyed by Big Chicken (Source: @Jefferdaughter 2014, np link).

As part of his campaign, Fearnley-Whittingstall tried to transform Axminster into the UK’s first free-range town, and he was the first to admit the project met with mixed results. It wasn’t just the supermarkets who were unhappy with the original series, however. Hugh also fell foul of Charles Bourns, the National Farmers’ Union’s head of poultry, who criticised it in the Press. The chef meets him to persuade him they are actually fighting a common enemy-the supermarket price wars which Fearnley-Whittingstall believes are driving producers out of business (Source: Anon 2009 p.27).

ANGRY chicken farmers say TV chefs Jamie Oliver and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall are ‘playing God’ by campaigning against battery farming. They claim they will go out of business as buyers bring in cheap chicken from abroad, where welfare standards are lower. Ian Johnson, of Exeter, Devon, said: ‘They should be aiming at supermarkets for paying prices which mean farmers have to cut costs to break even. ‘When they start playing God with our industry, they’ve stepped too far.’ John Riddell, of the National Farmers’ Union, said: ‘Supermarkets will import from Thailand and Brazil where chickens live in far worse conditions’ (Anon 2008d, p.15 link).

I watched all of Hugh’s Chicken Run season of shows and he kept saying that 2 chickens were a fiver in tescos. they’re not. They’re 5.50. Free range chickens were sold out when i was there although they had a couple of organic ones (Source: Stone 2008, np link).

They were two for a fiver but with all the publicity on C4 they put the price up (Source: catfunt 2008, np link).

me: wtches River Cottage Hugh’s Chicken Run 2. youtube: [Aardman’s 2000 animation] chicken run watch or rent now (Source: @UCUCUC27 2020, np link)!

Although I’m vegan and disagree with Hugh on some issues, he’s done more for veganism than almost or any other vegan. Thanks Hugh (Source: @chriswatson3464 2019, np link).

Anyone who eats meat is living on the lives of other animals – it has always been thus. We owe it to the animals who sustain our lives to give them the best possible experience of life. I would have thought this should be obvious. … Money should never take precedence over the experience of sentient beings, including chickens. There are people in the world who have far more wealth than they can ever use – if they’re not already decent people who like to help their fellow beings, they need to be compelled to donate that wealth to making the world better for all. Individual profit isn’t a worthy value to uphold. We need to extend care to all sentient beings, especially those who sustain our lives with theirs (Source: @sarahblaquiere3121 2023a, np link).

… what is significant about all of these programs [including Hugh’s Chicken Run] is that thet posit the necessity for better treatment of animals in food production, but not the abolition of the use of animals for such purposes. As such they do not trouble the assumption that the human production and consumption of other beings is a morally legitimate thing to do, and each of the chefs persists in routinely using animal products in their recipe-based cookery programs. … these programs, and the chefs involved in them, are emblematic of complex contradictory understandings of animal welfare and the limits commonly placed on such ethical considerations even where the intention is to make visible the cruelty routinely enacted upon animals in the name of human consumption. Where the conclusion arising from these chefs’ campaigns could well be veganism, the programs instead repeatedly refuse to countenance this not only as logical but also as necessary (Source Mills 2024, p.250).

… there remain limits to the disruption [that can be caused by] the tools within these programs for enacting moral relationships with food [because they] are ones that define citizens only as consumers, making ethical choices in terms of their own consumption but also, by extension, placing pressures on gfood production systems through decisions of what to buy and not to buy (Source Mills 2024, p.256).

The programs in the ‘Food Fight’ series aimed to make those invisible animals visible, and while they may have been a contributory Step on the road to more contemporary conceptualisations of veganism, they remain wedded to ethics enacted by the consumer rather than the consumed. This means their disruptive power is minimal, for they inadvertently assert and normalise human agency as the one and only legitimate locus of power (Source Mills 2024, p.266).

Watching the differences become more and more apparent as the birds grew was a real eye-opener for me. Whilst we mainly buy free range, I had started to become dubious about the differences when I saw the same producer names on both types. But after watching this, I’m a total convert. Quite simply, the methods used to intensively rear chicken are disgusting. If you want to eat meat that has been sitting in its own shit for its entire 39 day life, go right ahead but apart from any issues of animal welfare, if you want to see where Bird Flu will make the leap to humans in Europe, that’s where it’ll be (Source: O’Neil 2008 np link).

I watched the program on both nights. IT MADE ME SIT UP AND THINK. I went yesterday to do the shopping.I cut out half the biscuits and rubbish and bought two free range chickens and free range chicken breasts. The difference in the taste is amazing. I feel I am making a difference and will continue to by free range chickens and eggs. Thankyou for opening my eyes (Source: Gardiner 2008 np link).

[We’re] finally getting chickens this weekend after many years of wanting them. Rewatching Hugh’s Chicken Run to remind me of the day to day reminders (Source: Lip 2022, np link).

I’ve been watching Hugh’s Chicken Run with my son, where [Fearnley Whittingstall] experiments with building an intensive chicken farm to prove how bad they are. My son is now building his own battery chicken farm in Minecraft. Not sure that’s the point (Source: Russel 2021, np link).

I would like to congratulate Hugh for bringing the barbaric farming of chickens to my attention. I knew chickens were farmed on a huge scale and guess i was being the proverbial Ostrich and burying my head in the sand rather than confront it. Although I also live on a small budget I have decided to eat chicken less often so I can afford to buy free range, I will also make my chicken go further. The day after the programme I decided to go to Asda to buy my first free range bird only to find they didn’t have any. The only alternative I found one ONE lonely organic bird sitting on the shelf at a cost of over ten pounds, too much for my pocket I’m afraid so I left with nothing rather that buy the usual intensely farmed bird. I have spoken to lots of friends who are also moving over to free range, so don’t despair Hugh the word is out and your hard work has made a difference it may not have grabbed Axminster as you would have liked but you have grabbed many of us throughout the nation, Thank You Hugh (Source: Susie 2008 np link).

The manager of a bar and restaurant in Clifton was so shocked after watching a documentary about battery farmed chickens he refuses to use them on the menu. James Meloney, who manages Henry Africas bar and restaurant in Whiteladies Road, has emptied the freezer of ‘supermarket’ chickens and pledged to use only free-range birds on the menu from now on. After watching the Channel 4 documentary, Hugh’s Chicken Run, Mr Meloney has started his search for a local free-range chicken source. Mr Meloney said: ‘When I find a local supplier I am planning on visiting the farm myself so that I can see exactly what conditions the birds are reared in. The programme has been a real eye-opener for me. I am absolutely appalled and just can’t face eating poultry that’s come through that kind of production line – and I don’t expect any of my customers to either’ (Source: Anon 2008f, p.13).

A CHAIN of Indian restaurants based in the City is switching to free-range chicken after TV chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall reported on the conditions endured by factory farmed birds. Jamal Hirani, chief executive and founder of Tiffinbites, says he can no longer face serving broiler chickens. He expects the move to cost £150,000 a year but says menu prices will not rise to cover this. Mr Hirani added: ‘Hugh’s Chicken Run series (on Channel 4) has really affected the nation. We immediately began receiving queries from customers as to the nature of the chicken we serve and myself and all staff instantly knew we had to ensure all our poultry was free range.’ Fearnley-Whittingstall said: ‘We hope many other Indian restaurants, both independent and chains, will follow Tiffinbites’ excellent example and decide to go free range’ (Source: Anon 2008g, p.20).

Pupils from John Bramston School, Witham are welcoming some feathered friends to the coop as they embark on a moral challenge. Year 11 students were the first to get their hands on the 10 chickens which will become a permanent fixture at the Spinks Lane school. Assistant principal Daren White said: ‘I have chickens at home and the pupils were quite interested, so we asked the school governors and it went from there. ‘We have been watching Hugh’s Chicken Run in social science lessons and the guys were really shocked. They have also seen alarming footage on the internet video site YouTube. They have been really hands on with the project so far, with staining the coop and getting everything ready. They will be able to collect the eggs at lunch times and clean the chickens out after school.’ The chickens have kindly been donated by Jean Grice from Essex Battery Hen Welfare trust. Student Craig Lillywhite, 16, said: ‘The conditions we watched were awful and we wanted to try to make a difference. I have even switched to free range chicken at home because of it.’ The pupils are now planning to sell the fresh eggs from the main reception (Source: Anon 2008h, p.38).

Chicken Run has had an impact. [Fearnley-Whittingstall:] ‘Informally, we’ve had lots of reports that sales of free-range and organic chickens are increasing since the programme went out; and formally from Sainsbury’s who’ve said their free-range and organic birds are flying off the shelves. We’ve also heard from the biggest poultry producer in the West Country, who does organic, free-range and Freedom-Food chickens, that they can’t keep up with the demand for free-range because the supermarkets have been increasing their orders’  (Source: Seal 2008, p.18 link).

‘There has been’, the tangle-haired presenter admits, ‘something of a backlash from people who didn’t like to be made to feel guilty about the kind of food they were eating’ (Source: Vallely 2008:np link).

John Kirkpatrick, from Dungiven in Co Londonderry, told the Belfast Telegraph that he has been inundated with calls after he helped the TV chef Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall set up an experimental poultry unit comparing standard and free range systems. Their progress was aired this week as part of Hugh’s Chicken Run, which ran for the past three nights on Channel 4. … But when Mr Kirkpatrick’s industry contacts got wind that he was to be involved in filming with Hugh, well known for advocating ‘freedom’ farming, they were not impressed. Mr Kirkpatrick said he had even received a call warning him he wouldn’t work in the industry anywhere in the UK again. He told the North West Telegraph: ‘I was warned it would jeopardise my future career in the poultry industry by taking this project on. I had calls from people making some of the issues clearer, as if I didn’t already know. Several people mentioned what I was doing and why. But at the end of the day I’ve been in the industry and I’ve seen what the poultry industry is capable of – good and bad. You’re seen to be aiding somebody who is against factory farming and that is one of the things that is a bit difficult for people within the poultry industry to follow. I know the people personally and I can understand where they’re coming from, but we’ve got to let the public see how the production of poultry meat in the UK is carried out.’ Mr Kirkpatrick said he first met Mr Fearnley Whittingstall at a food meeting in Dorset where they discussed their concerns about the poultry industry. ‘Our opinions were very, very similar, hence the reason I got involved,’ he said. ‘I think this has been very beneficial – it has stimulated a debate in the industry. I’ve had all sorts of phone calls and discussions this week, some of it positive, some not so positive.’ The Dungiven man said he is hoping the programme will spark major changes in the broiler chicken industry similar to what has already taken place in the egg industry. He did come under fire from farmers before the programme was aired but he insists that has now changed because of the emphasis on how the main supermarket chains are forcing farmers to adopt a low-margin system (Source: McKee 2008 link).

Axminster has demanded that Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall … apologises to its residents, saying his series, Hugh’s Chicken Run, portrayed them in a bad light. In the programme Hugh referred to residents of the town’s largest council estate as the ‘Millway Mob’ and the townsfolk claim he portrayed the estate as rough. Hugh was also criticised for his horror that some were prepared to put cost over ethics when buying chicken, even after he exposed them to intensive farming conditions. Axminster town council passed a unanimous vote asking the old Etonian to say sorry for looking down on the town’s residents. Shopkeeper Terry Fisher says his customers were angry at how they were portrayed on the programme. What’s more, his customers still buy normal chickens, not Hugh’s £8 free range versions (Source: Heffernan 2008, p.12 link).

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall has written an open letter to people living in Axminster, East Devon, following concerns about a television programme on chicken farming, in which a local housing estate was described as ‘the tough end of tow’ and depicted with a sign covered in graffiti. The TV chef, who is also a local farmer, defended himself against local rumours that he had called the Millwey estate ‘rough’, saying he had in fact described it as ‘tough.’ A prominent local councillor said the open letter would be welcomed by Axminster residents (Source: Anon 2008g, np).

Lloyd Maunder is producing record numbers of chicken reared in ‘higher welfare systems’ since two celebrity chefs put the spotlight on the UK’s poultry production. The Willand-based poultry firm hopes its new Freedom Food labelled birds will dominate its output given the unprecedented demand. Company directors made the move after Jamie Oliver and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s respective programmes were broadcast on Channel 4 in January. Andrew Maunder, commercial director for the company, said: ‘The programmes literally turned the poultry market on its head. Five months down the road, customers are still choosing higher welfare chicken products, and we’ve been working hard with our local farmers to increase production to meet demand’ (Source: Anon 2008i, p.2).

It’s now two months since the end of Hugh’s Chicken Run, and we seem to have made a difference. Waitrose says sales of free-range chickens are up by 22% and organic is up by 39%. Asda plans to stock 25% more free-range chicken by the end of May, and 50% more by the end of September.  Somerfield says free-range sales are up by 50%, and sales of ‘higher welfare’ fresh poultry are up by 40%… Tesco has decided to upgrade its Willow Farm birds to the RSPCA Freedom Food audit system (Source: Fearnley-Whittingstall 2008b np link).

Sales of factory-farmed chickens have slumped since a high-profile campaign raised awareness of the cruelty at the heart of the poultry industry and implored consumers to pay more to improve the animals’ welfare. In a victory for campaigners who have fought to expose the short and brutal lives of broiler birds, shoppers have bought millions more free-range and organic birds while leaving mass-produced chickens on the shelves. Sales of free-range poultry shot up by 35 per cent last month compared with January 2007, while sales of standard indoor birds fell by 7 per cent, according to a survey of 25,000 shoppers by the market research company TNS. Supermarkets have been stripped of free-range birds, prompting complaints from frustrated shoppers keen to embrace the movement away from intensive farming. The rise in sales would have been even higher if poultry producers had been able to keep up with demand. Many suppliers in the £2bn-a-year poultry industry are now expected to convert cramped chicken sheds into more spacious accommodation. Tesco, the country’s biggest retailer, has doubled its order for higher-welfare chickens while Sainsbury’s has been flabbergasted by the ‘unprecedented’ spurt in demand and forced to import free-range birds from France. In the weeks after the chefs Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Jamie Oliver launched a high-profile campaign on Channel 4, supermarkets had stated that sales of ‘standard’ chickens had held up, and even increased. But the new national sales data suggests that shoppers’ priorities have shifted dramatically. If the TNS data was extrapolated to the rest of the UK, it suggests sales of factory-farmed chickens dipped by 10 million, while shoppers bought 4.4 million more free-range chickens. Overall, chicken sales were down by 4.8 per cent, perhaps because many people, when faced with an absence of free-range chicken, simply bought no chicken … According to separate polling by ACNielsen, half of the four million viewers who saw the shows said they would buy better chicken (Source: Hickman 2008 np link).

Recently Hugh has released another chicken escapade which I saw last night called ‘Chicken, Hugh and Tesco too’. What happened was that we were shown the progress that was made by most of the major supermarkets apart from one certain supermarket who is the biggest player in the British market. Tesco. In order to voice his opinion Hugh bought 1 share in Tesco giving him access to the AGM. In order to submit a ‘resolution’ to upgrade the conditions of chicken farms to the RSPCA Freedom Foods standards he had to be backed by 100 shareholders with a combined 200,000 shares…Tesco then said that this issue was being treated as a ‘special’ resolution and that in order to pass the vote 75% had to vote In favour of Hugh. The votes were counted and 10% voted in favour of the motion and 9% abstained (Source: Alastair 2009 np link).

The campaign reached a climax last June when Hugh appealed to Tesco’s Board and shareholders at their AGM. With the help of Compassion in World Farming, he presented Resolution 17 in favour of the ‘Five Freedoms’ for chickens sold by the supermarket giant (Source: Anon ndf np link).

With an amazing 278 MP signatures at the close of the parliamentary session (November 2009), an Early Day Motion (EDM) calling for improved welfare of chickens came fifth behind calls to support solar energy and justice for Equitable Life policyholders. Over 40% of all UK MPs supported EDM 581, calling for clear and honest labelling on chicken meat and urging the UK Government to improve the welfare of chickens reared for meat. Mike Hancock MP, sponsor of EDM 581 says ‘Animal welfare is an important issue among UK politicians. The strong support for this parliamentary motion should send a clear message through the UK Government and to the supermarkets that the welfare of chickens must be taken seriously. ‘I thank the supporters of the Chicken Out! campaign for bringing this issue and parliamentary motion to the attention of their local MPs’. Chicken Out! is delighted that a parliamentary motion has achieved a record number of MPs’ publicly showing support for higher welfare standards for chickens. With over 167,000 people now signed up to the Chicken Out! campaign and this unprecedented level of parliamentary support for animal welfare, it clearly shows that the welfare of chickens is being taken seriously (Source: Anon nda np link).

I remember seeing this as a kid and being heartbroken and angry. But now for some reason it doesn’t hit so hard. It is certainly unpleasant and I’m hoping to have my own small holding when I can finally afford a house. That way I can make sure most of the stuff I eat has had a great life (Source: @jameswallace7091 2020, np link).

It’s been more than 15 years since my show Hugh’s Chicken Run exposed the treatment of the UK’s most farmed animal. The month after it aired, sales of factory-farmed chickens plummeted and free-range birds flew off the shelves as the public began to contemplate the short and brutal lives of animals they had seen only when headless, plucked and smothered in clingfilm. The programme was broadcast on Channel 4 to millions of viewers, and I hoped it would spark a nationwide revolt against the ‘two for a fiver’ birds in supermarket fridges, the insultingly low price for which could only be achieved by systematic cruelty. I had hoped that beaming footage of these abused chickens into people’s living rooms might make them think twice about their dinner, and shop differently for ever. But despite years of campaigning, chicken farming remains mostly crowded, confining and – above all – cruel. The more things change, the more they stay the same. When the show came out in 2008, there were 850m chickens being reared in miserable factories across the UK. Now there are more than 1bn. … In 2008, more than 95% of chickens were factory farmed; now that figure is close to 90%. That’s not nothing, but it is not the revolution I’d hoped for. We did contribute to change. New welfare initiatives such as the Better Chicken Commitment (BCC) were created and championed by animal welfare charities and their supporters around the globe. Today, farms that follow the BCC guidelines give chickens more space, and environmental enrichment to encourage natural behaviour patterns such as foraging, perching and pecking. And they prohibit the use of unnaturally fast-growing breeds, which are beset by painful health problems. Injuries and premature mortality for chickens in the BCC systems are reduced. More than 350 companies have signed up across the UK and Europe. There has even been progress among previously stubborn and elusive supermarkets. Waitrose and Marks & Spencer, who refused to meet me on camera over chicken welfare, are now both signed up to the BCC. Sainsbury’s, who promised me on camera that all its fresh chicken would be higher welfare within five years, is not, and while it did announce plans to improve its standards last year, it is still relying on fast-growing chicken breeds (Source: Fearnley-Whittingstall 2023, np link).