KFC, Nando’s, and others ditch chicken welfare pledge as demand soars

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm2r6jqm042o

Posted by Immediate-Ad-7268

24 Comments

  1. ConfidentCobbler23 on

    Hopefully their sales start dropping when customers start getting served woody chicken with its tough, rubbery texture.

  2. This should be something the government sets standards for and should not be down to individual businesses

  3. detectivebabylegz on

    When I worked at Nando’s, there were constant supply issues, with smaller restaurants having to close a couple of days a week. Staff are on contracts, so they still have to be paid, but with no sales, it massively impacts profits The profit margins for restaurants are small, so they can risk looking like hypocrites or start to close restaurants or make cuts elsewhere.

  4. This article doesn’t give a positive impression of the restaurant chains, but personally it provides thought whether I should costum them in the future as it does seems like it’s price over welfare standards.

    Loooking at past articles provides more information.

    [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lincolnshire-66721642](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lincolnshire-66721642)

    [https://thehumaneleague.org/article/uk-court-frankenchickens-verdict](https://thehumaneleague.org/article/uk-court-frankenchickens-verdict)

    https://opencages.org/investigations

    [https://www.euronews.com/green/2022/04/24/frankenchickens-the-nightmarish-reality-of-how-chickens-are-farmed-in-the-uk](https://www.euronews.com/green/2022/04/24/frankenchickens-the-nightmarish-reality-of-how-chickens-are-farmed-in-the-uk)

    >These chickens are growing 400 per cent faster than they did in the 1950s – all because farmers have been allowed to selectively breed the animals in order to maximise profit.

    >“This creates a whole host of health and welfare problems,” explains Amro Hussain, senior public affairs lead at [**The Humane League UK**](https://thehumaneleague.org.uk/).

    >“It causes them to collapse under their own body weight, painful leg conditions, redraw burns on their skin from sitting in their own excrement, muscle disease.

    I don’t think anyone wants the above but it’s a possibility the industry is sidelining those concerns for profit/price.

    I think they really need to open up about it, let consumers see what is happenig. In theory it shouldn’t happen due to the welfare standards in place by law, but sometimes laws aren’t enforced (especially when its hidden like it is now) and authorities are too slow to take action, to me theres a lack of trust, and in part thats why welfare schemes are important and an industry led one isn’t going to be that trustworthy.

  5. So many people in this thread falling over themselves to tell you they don’t eat this crap.

    Great, I’m happy for you. Many of us quite like it, though.

  6. Demand for KFC & Nando’s is ‘soaring’?

    I thought most of us were cutting down on takeaways given how expensive they have got?

  7. Swimming_Register_32 on

    I’d be fine with this if the prices dropped to reflect the lower quality chicken but we all know it won’t.

  8. Just a reminder, it’s optional to eat this slop.

    With any types of food, the condition it’s kept in, the chemicals it’s pumped full of, how it’s stored & to what extent it’s contaminated matter as much as taste.

  9. Deepmidwinter2025 on

    The public are pretty thick about the quality of their food – and the benefits on at least getting more protein from plant sources.

    Recently saw a gym fan bragging how how was so strict about his diet – bought organic oats – but happily bought chicken breasts from
    Aldi.

    Maybe the public should just east less takeaway?

  10. I work in Nandos and so far the stuff we get is red tractor approved, though after Covid we gained multiple suppliers (who are still red tractor approved) and the quality of the meat when racked varied heavily cuts of it too, even when cooked the taste is a bit different and the texture, sad to see profit being chased once again but it is what it is I guess (just my two cents)

  11. RockinOneThreeTwo on

    This is a big reason why every “welfarist position” is nothing more than a fucking joke, welfarism exists to do nothing more than assuage guilt — and guilt has a breaking point which is often monetary. Welfarism is completely fucking pointless, total abolition is the only rational ideological position for anyone who claims to care about the wellbeing of animals. Anything less is just to make yourself feel better, which is such an utterly meaningless exercise in fantasy that you might as well make up the welfare standards inside your own head and convince yourself they exist. You can’t commit to ideological positions of half-arsed justice and then get annoyed when the victims are harmed in a way that you “don’t agree with” if you’re willing to accept them being harmed in ways that you do agree with.

  12. TheMonkeyInCharge on

    > Claire Williams, campaigns manager at The Humane League

    She was working as a waitress in a KFC when she met me.

  13. What a surprise, companies that makes money exploiting and killing millions of animals doesn’t care about animal cruelty.

    The fact that cite environmental concerns of non-fast growing chickens is just adding insult to injury.

    If you truly care about animals, the only thing you can do is remove your money from any company that profits from exploiting and killing them. Money is the only language these companies speak.

  14. Curious. How is demand increasing but prices too? I would have assumed demand is down so ditching welfare is a way to stop further price increases and drive demand back up?

  15. Gareth_stanlier on

    business colluding to force us to accept whats in their interest is now going to be the norm.

    weird isnt it that they all announce this together because they know if one does it, we have other options. but if they all do it, the consumer can do little.

    thats how its going to be and boy are they craving a UK govt that will lower standards even more so they can make more money and we again can do little about it, unless of course you eat at the finest restaurants where all chicken and meat will be hormone free and normal for the elites.