Tesco shareholders to be asked to vote on chicken welfare
June 27, 2008
Shareholders at Britain’s largest supermarket chain will be asked to back proposals by TV Chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, which hopes to improve the welfare standards of chickens.
Mr Fearnley-Whittingstall will be joining investors at Tesco’s annual general meeting (AGM). Investors will be asked to vote to adopt new standards on how the birds are reared.
The celebrity Chef and others have claimed that some farms keep their chickens in appalling conditions.
However Tesco says its chickens are sourced from farms which have high standards.
A fifth of all chickens reared intensively on farms go to Tesco. They were criticized earlier this year because they dropped the price of their standard whole chicken to £1.99.
Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall has campaigned against chicken being reared on battery farms. He is encouraging shareholders to support a motion that will make Tesco adopt the RSPCA’s freedom farm standards on how chickens are fed and what exercise they get.
Some critics of the motion say that it will force the price of chickens to rise and this would put even more strain on families shopping budgets.
PIRC the corporate governance firm, which is backing the movement, said that they did not expect to win the vote but hopes it would raise awareness of the issue. They also said that higher standards would create a “more enriched environment” for chickens and this would be healthier for customers.
Phineas Glover of PIRC doesn’t think the lowest price is the only factor when people are shopping, he said “A lot of evidence suggests that non financial issues are big indicators of long term value.”
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