Wednesday, May 4, 2016

Sow-growth chicken in demand


The Wall Street Journal reports that lobbying pressure has been applied to retailers to buy only slower-growing breeds of chicken.

Whole Foods Market Inc., Starbucks Corp. and Bon Appetit Management Co. are pushing suppliers to switch to slower-growing chicken breeds, but a transition could take years because of limited supply, the newspaper reports.

Whole Foods in March announced it intends to replace all of its chicken with slower-growing breeds in the next eight years to support a commitment to improve chicken welfare and provide customers with products of the highest quality and flavour.

The National Chicken Council says it strongly supports consumer choice, but cautioned that one production system should not be vilified at the expense of another.

Breeding company executives questioned whether consumers will be willing to pay more for slow-growing chicken, which cost anywhere from 20 percent to three times more than conventional chicken, according to the Wall Street Journal report.

So far there have been no news media reports of similar lobbying pressure on Canadian chicken suppliers.