2:20pm Saturday 11th April 2009
The Chicken Out! Campaign, run by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Compassion in World Farming, has announced the winner of a design a new Tesco standard chicken label following an online design competition.
Judging the competition Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall said: "This design is a stark contrast from the outdoor image and misleading wording that currently appears on the Tesco standard chicken label. If Tesco took the principle of this winning label, it would allow shoppers to know the true conditions in which their chicken was produced. And on that basis I'm sure many more Tesco shoppers would choose to switch to a higher welfare choice.
The winning label by Debbie Cripps of Moulton, Lincolnshire has today been presented to Tesco by Fearnley-Whittingstall and Compassion in World Farming in the hopes that the supermarket giant will take an honest approach to poultry labelling.
The Chicken Out! campaign ran the competition to propose a new label for Tesco's standard intensively reared chicken following the broadcast of Channel 4's Chickens, Hugh and Tesco Too. A chickenout.tv poll found Tesco to have the most misleading chicken label out of five leading UK supermarkets with 76% per cent of the almost 10,000 votes.
"Since Tesco 'won' our most misleading label poll with over three quarters of all votes, we wanted to give the public a chance to propose what they think Tesco should put on the label," says Eloise Shavelar, Chicken Campaign Co-coordinator for Compassion in World Farming.
Debbie Cripps said: "I designed the label to be visually clear and state facts, it gives information to the consumer so they can make an informed decision when buying their chicken, rather than the welfare issues being disguised by the packaging. Hugh is doing a fantastic job in raising awareness of where our food comes from, but the supermarkets need to do their bit too.
Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall added: "We have had a fantastic response to our honest label competition which reflects that consumers agree with us that this is a really important issue. If the supermarkets choose not to listen to campaigners, that's one thing. But surely, they must listen to their customers. I chose the winning label for its transparency and fairness. Let's hope Tesco and the other supermarkets genuinely respond to this kind of feedback.
"Many supermarkets are using packaging that includes 'meaningless descriptions' and images representing the 'outdoors' that could imply chickens live a healthy, outdoor life. Clear and honest labelling will empower shoppers to make an informed choice."
Since 2004, eggs boxes by law must be labelled with the production method and this has led to a move away from caged eggs. Compassion in World Farming believes this scheme should be extended to chicken meat.
© Copyright 2001-2012 Newsquest Media Group
http://www.smallholder.co.uk