Sainsbury’s returns Good Chicken Award after eight years

Compassion in World Farming said Sainsbury’s has "backtracked" on chicken welfare

Sainsbury's has returned its Good Chicken Award after keeping the title for almost eight years due to failure in achieving higher welfare commitments.

Compassion in World Farming launched the Good Chicken Award in 2010 to publicly recognise those companies committing to use higher welfare chicken.

Sainsbury’s, along with Waitrose, M&S and the Co-op were the first UK retailers to receive the Good Chicken Award in 2010.

Sainsbury’s was regarded as ‘the country’s number one supermarket for animal welfare’ selling more RSPCA Assured chicken than any other retailer.

However, Compassion in World Farming has highlighted that less than 20% of Sainsbury’s fresh chicken is reared to higher welfare standards.

The animal welfare organisation said most of the chicken Sainsbury's sells is standard chicken.

Sainsbury’s had committed, for all of its fresh, own-label chicken, to provide more space for chickens to live, to provide the birds with natural light and enrichment such as straw bales for them to peck at and perch on, and to move to a slower growing breed of bird.

'Low conversion'

Company commitments under Compassion’s Good Farm Animal Welfare Awards should be met within five years.

But Sainsbury’s has achieved "low conversion" on its Good Chicken Award commitments since 2010 and has "failed to deliver on its promise", according to Compassion in World Farming.

Compassion’s Director of Food Business, Dr Tracey Jones: “It’s extremely disappointing to see Sainsbury’s backtrack on its higher welfare commitments when other companies, like M&S, are committing to advance their chicken standards even further.

“We expect a leading UK retailer like Sainsbury’s who ‘knows that animal health and welfare matters’ to its customers to be at the forefront of the growing movement for higher welfare chicken.

“By not delivering on its welfare commitments – and in fact by completely withdrawing from them – Sainsbury’s is falling behind the curve and not only letting the chickens and its customers down but itself down too.”

'More effective approach'

However, a Sainsbury’s spokesperson said the retailer is "committed to high standards of animal welfare".

“It is what our customers expect from us, and it is why we are the UK’s biggest retailer of RSPCA Assured products and the world’s biggest retailer of MSC certified products,” the spokesperson said.

“While we share Compassion in World Farming’s commitment to improving animal welfare practices, we have been clear to them we believe a different approach is more effective.

“The way we work with our farmers is different, and has been for years. We’ve created a cycle of measuring, managing and continuously improving the health and welfare of our animals, and we believe the results speak for themselves.”