Fearnley-Whittingstall chicken campaign targets Tesco labelling

by Nadia Ghani, Brand Republic 01-Mar-09, 08:30

LONDON: Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's 'Chicken Out!' campaign has announced the winner of a design competition to create a new label proposal for Tesco's standard reared chicken.

The celebrity chef joined forces with Compassion in World Farming to set up the competition as part of the Chicken Out! campaign to promote labelling that is more honest about the conditions in which chickens are reared.

It was decided to focus the competition on redesigning Tesco's label after a TV poll on chickenout.tv found that three quarters of people thought that it had the most misleading design out of all the supermarkets.

Chicken Out! competition winning design by Debbie Cripps

Tesco's current label implies chickens live a healthy, outdoor life and descriptions are not explicit.

Competition winner Debbie Cripps' design provides an image of the cramped living conditions that chickens face.

The image is accompanied by the message: "Intensively Reared Chicken: The farms that produce these chickens do so on a large scale in a controlled environment where the birds reach ultimate weight quickly to provide you with value."

Fearnley-Whittingstall said: "If Tesco took the principle of this winning label, it would allow shoppers to know the true conditions in which their chicken was produced.

On that basis I am sure many more Tesco shoppers would swap to a higher welfare choice.

"Let's hope Tesco and the other supermarkets genuinely respond to this kind of feedback."