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.
