The television chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, known for his earthy approach to cooking and love of offal, is to launch a campaign for the middle classes to boycott cheap chicken in protest at the cruelty of battery farming.

Fearnley-Whittingstall believes well-heeled consumers should be prepared to pay more for their chicken so that fewer birds are reared in overcrowded, unnatural conditions.

Currently, less than 5 per cent of chicken bought in Britain is organic or free-range, and critics believe shoppers place too much emphasis on simply finding the lowest prices. Organic chicken in the supermarket is about 2.5 times the price of intensively reared birds.

Fearnley-Whittingstall is the latest celebrity chef to turn to campaigning, in the wake of Jamie Oliver’s efforts to improve school food. Oliver is also using a Channel 4 programme to attack the poultry industry.

Expert View

You can't expect a £3 chicken to have had a good life

Adam Balon

• More

• Post a comment

Seasonal Food: January

Because seasonal food is fresher it tends to be tastier and more nutritious. Find recipes from Gordon Ramsay, Jamie Oliver and others

• Shades of green food

• Midwinter greens

Related Internet Links

• Real Food Directory

• Organic Box Finder

Related Links

• Jamie’s ruffling feathers again

• Supermarkets sell old chicken as ‘fresh’

• Jamie Oliver’s grilled mushroom risotto made with fresh chicken stock

However, Fearnley-Whittingstall’s call for the middle classes to choose more expensive products comes at a time when food prices are already rising at their fastest rate for 14 years.

An intensively reared fresh chicken at Sainsbury’s costs £2.19 per kilo, and customers buying free-range or organic birds must pay significantly more – £3.99 and £5.49 per kilo respectively.

“We have a problem as a nation,” said the chef. “Somehow we’ve decided that food is a really good area to save money. We spend less of our household income on food than any country in Europe.

“I completely sympathise with families on a very tight budget, but at the same time intensive farming accounts for 95 per cent of the chicken that we eat. There are undoubtedly millions of us who are buying cheap chickens who could easily afford to buy free-range.”

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.

His campaign starts on January 7 in Hugh’s Chicken Run, a short series for Channel 4. When poultry farmers refused to let him inside their sheds he set up his own experiment, dividing a shed into half free-range and half intensive.

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.

Any bird that seems to be struggling is immediately killed. At one point in the series, Fearnley-Whittingstall cries because he cannot face killing another bird.

He provides his free-range chickens with straw bales for shade, miniature footballs to kick and CDs to peck.

“Environmental enrichment is key to poultry welfare,” said Fearnley-Whittingstall. “Intensive chicken farms are not about to open all their doors and say to their birds, ‘There you are, go and have a run around the field.’ The scale of the industry is too huge. But they can deintensify by a factor of 20 per cent - 25 per cent – 30,000 birds instead of 40,000.” Chicken accounts for about 40% of all meat eaten in Britain, with about 16m birds slaughtered a week.

There are welfare standards for intensive farming, which were tightened up earlier this year. But typically around 20,000-50,000 birds can still be kept in barns that are dimly lit to discourage movement and ensure weight is gained as quickly as possible. Most are slaughtered at 5-6 weeks.

Free-range chickens must be allowed outside for at least half their lives and are grown more slowly, to be killed at eight weeks (or 10-11 weeks if they are organic).

Fearnley-Whittingstall recognises changing these practices will take time. “The industry moves fairly slowly,” he said. “It will take five years, but I would count it a success if we got the 3 per cent - 4 per cent that is currently free-range up to 20 per cent.”

The chef has found some supermarkets unwilling to help. “In the programme we have that typical corporate doorstepping, the prevarication and pretending to listen and the calling off of meetings at the last moment,” he said. “Having said that, three of the eight main supermarkets have committed to upgrading the welfare systems of the standard product.”

Hugh’s Chicken Run begins on Channel 4 on Monday, January 7th . For River Cottage courses and events, see www.rivercottage.net ; Click here for Hugh's Chicken Out campaign.

For the best local produce in your area visit the Times Real Food Directory

Explore Food & Drink

• Gordon Ramsay

• Heston Blumenthal

• Recipes

• Wine

• Real Food

• Drinks

• Anjum Anand

• Eating Out

• Video Recipes

Times Recommends

• Gordon Brown’s favourite pud
• Five-spice butternut soup
• How to make popcorn and crisps