Cracking idea - council bans battery hen eggs

1:57pm Wednesday 16th January 2008

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EGGSELLENT news - Wirral is going battery hen free.

From now on, battery hen eggs will be banned from the borough's schools, care homes and canteens.

"I think the majority of people in Wirral will back us on this."

Steve Foulkes

It'll cost taxpayers £5,000 between them - but it means children and old people will be eating a "cruelty-free" food.

The move is being hailed as a victory for TV chefs Jamie Oliver and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, whose Big Food Fight series on Channel 4 highlighted the issue last week.

But the Globe can reveal that it is actually the result of remarkably successful campaigning by pressure group Compassion in World Farming.

Member Marian Hussenbux, from Arrowe Park, told us: "I got in touch with my local councillor John George last September, and he took the idea to council leader Steve Foulkes.

"To be honest, I wasn't sure what reaction I'd get. The CWF had just asked us to at least contact our local councils to make the point.

"As it turned out, I was pushing at an already open door. And what with the Channel 4 series airing last week, it seems synchronicity played a large part too!"

Chefs Jamie and Hugh spent last week highlighting the way chickens are treated before they arrive as meat or eggs in our shopping baskets.

Wirral council leader Steve Foulkes said: "I think the majority of people in Wirral will back us on this.

"Because of European regulations, the battery system for eggs is set to end in 2012 so we are going to pre-empt that and act now.

"In negotiating our next morning foods contract, we had already found a £25,000 saving on the previous one.

"This decision reduced that saving to £20,000, so effectively cost us £5,000."

But the TV series has not just had an effect on council thinking.

Sales of organic produce, especially chickens, have risen dramatically over the past week.

Hugh's Chicken Run and Jamie's Fowl Dinners highlighted the differences between living conditions for standard' battery chickens, enriched cages', barn, free range and organic birds.

Programme makers say that 50 years ago, chicken was a special treat that people were lucky to have once a week.

Now, thanks to modern farming methods, it has become an easily affordable everyday food, with whole birds available for just £2, even though farmers make just 3p per bird.

Tesco reported a dramatic increase in the sales of all their organic produce and completely sold out of organic chickens earlier this week.

Julie Davies, duty manager at Tesco in Bidston, said: "The store has been selling unusually large amounts of organic and free-range produce and we'll now be increasing our supply of organic produce to meet the demands of the customer."

Simon Bunyan, manager at Sainsbury's in Prenton, says they have also witnessed a leap in the sales of organic chickens.

"We've definitely seen an uplift in organic chicken sales as well as the taste-the-difference free range products as well," he said.

"It's clear that it is a direct result of these tv programmes last week, as we wouldn't normally see a rise in these sales at this time of the year."

Telly chef Hugh said he plans to kickstart a chicken revolution by replacing cheap chickens sold by supermarkets for ethically reared free-range chicken.

Did you know?

Chicken is Britain's most popular meat

We eat 12 times as much chicken as we did 30 years ago. Our demand means that not only is it mass-produced, it is also dirt cheap

855 million chickens are produced in the UK every year

Some supermarkets are selling whole birds for as little as £2

Chickens are cheaper than some dog food. But this low cost is not necessarily good for the farmer or the birds.

Every day 100,000 birds die in standard chicken farms due to poor welfare conditions