Animal welfare and farming groups have criticised the supermarket giant Tesco for cutting the retail price of its standard whole chicken to £1.99.
The store says bringing down the price of a bird from £3.30 will benefit "shoppers on a budget".
The National Farmers' Union (NFU) says the move is "extremely ill-judged and short sighted. [...] They're devaluing the product and doing it at a time when, overall, the market is strengthening and chicken prices are rising[DC: Wtf?!?]. They're sucking value out of the supply chain and unless Tesco is going to subsidise this, it is not a sustainable price," he said.
Compassion in World Farming (CIWF), which praised the chain in its latest supermarket survey for improving the environment for indoor-reared birds, believes that Tesco have taken the wrong approach [...] "If Tesco is prepared to drop their prices in this way, why don't they decrease it on the higher welfare chickens and make that more accessible to poorer consumers."
The RSPCA, which oversees the "Freedom Food" programme for livestock welfare, said low-price chicken "was not the answer".
Once more, the BBC's coverage of all matters economic is abysmal (not that political coverage is much better - Chris Dillow makes some very good points here). This is decidedly not public service broadcasting; I want my license fee back.
Related: Indiffirence Merv on hating supermarkets.
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