Has the price of a chicken fallen too low?

Tesco’s decision to reduce the price of its standard broiler chicken to just £1.99 has attracted great criticism, but Tesco is hitting back.

On the face of it, the timing to lower the price of a whole chicken to just £1.99 seemed a bit unfortunately (or careless). The Channel 4 programmes that highlighted the issues with intensive chicken production have focused certain consumer groups on the issues surrounding how food is sourced.

Tesco’s chicken price promotion seems particularly odd when rivals such as Waitrose has stated it will only be selling free range and RSPCA-approved ‘Select Farm’ chickens and Co-op has replaced all its standard fresh chickens with chickens reared in the higher welfare Elmwood standard. Its cool now to buy organic or free range chickens, assuming you can afford to.

The National Farmers’ Union (NFU) described tesco’s move as “extremely ill-judged and short sighted”.

But perhaps not every consumer group is too concerned - particularly those on low incomes.

Tesco’s PR director has hit back in the press this week. Quoted in The Telegraph, she says…

“Some say we are undoing progress on animal welfare, and that, rather than cut prices, we should only sell free-range chickens,”

“It’s true that we cut the price but we bore the cost of that promotion ourselves. There was no reduction in animal welfare.

“Nor do I think it is right to say that we are ‘under-valuing’ the product. The truth is that many families are tightening their belts and are looking for better value without a reduction in standards,”

The chicken debate is a great example of how a marketing promotion can generate a lot of adverse publicity from outside stakeholders.