Progress on higher welfare chicken production has been painfully slow. So slow that companies are now keeping the figures secret. By David Burrows.
KFC is a business that has been at the sharp end of NGO pressure relating to the welfare of chickens. Some may feel the fast food chain has been unfairly singled out on its recent sustainability setbacks (including by Footprint). Campaigners who have had their knives out feel the Colonel needs to be chopped down to size, though.
Indeed, this is a big, big brand, with bold ambitions to become bigger. Plans are “on track” to add nearly 3,000 new restaurants on a gross basis around the world, according to the company’s CEO during an investor call for Q3 results earlier this month, which would set a new record for annual gross development for the brand. KFC is currently opening a new store every three hours on average.
Christopher Turner, CEO and director at KFC owner Yum! explained: “Several KFC international markets are delivering exceptional results, including the UK market with same-store sales up 9% on 6% transaction growth.” And there is more to come. “[…] going forward, we will be laser-focused on accelerating growth around the world, backed by our two biggest brands, KFC and Taco Bell,” he added.
With such scale comes responsibility. The chain’s current marketing strapline is: ‘Believe in chicken.’ But having recently read through its latest update on bird welfare across the UK and Western European business, it has become harder still to have any confidence in KFC’s commitment to better chicken.
There has been some progress: a 50% drop in total antibiotics use, for example, as well as “the increase of birds raised under 30kg/m2 of density”. But footpad dermatitis (31.8%) and hock burn (18.1%) are at their highest levels since 2021 in the UK & Ireland, and there is a similar story across western Europe.
The 30kg/m2 is a maximum permitted under the Better Chicken Commitment (BCC), run by Compassion in World Farming, to which KFC is a signatory. UK laws permit 39kg/m2. For free range and organic the maximums are 27.5kg/m2 and 21kg/m2 respectively.
By the end of 2026 all of the chickens in KFC’s UK & Ireland supply chain should be reared to that 30kg/m2 limit, under the BCC. The average in 2024 was 33.5kg/m2, down from 34.9kg/m2 in 2022, so it is going in the right direction but nowhere near fast enough. Indeed, only 28.4% of the chain’s chickens are reared to 30kg/m2 or less. Some 13.1% are at levels between 38 and 42kg/m2.
It should be noted – as Footprint has before – that KFC deserves credit for publicly reporting this information on a regular basis. Fast-growing rivals like Wingstop, Popeyes and Slim Chickens do not provide such transparency and so are not subjected to the same depth of scrutiny. However, KFC is by far the UK’s largest chicken shop brand and so it should reasonably expect to act as a standard bearer. There is a sense of foul play in its latest report as figures on the percentage of slower-growing breeds the chain is using across its western Europe supply chains have not been included. They were last year and the year before.
KFC did not respond to requests for an explanation (and the data). If the recent BCC figures and performance in recent years are anything to go by, there is likely to have been very little if any progress in relation to this key welfare indicator – one that is central to the BCC, according to campaigners.
KFC’s 2024 progress report showed that in 2023 just 1% of the chickens it buys were the slower growing breeds defined by the BCC. In the UK & Ireland it was 0.7%, with Germany, Denmark and Switzerland the leaders with 2.9%. The target is 100% by the end of 2026.
The adoption of slower growing breeds is “a crucial part of higher welfare”, said Dan Crossley, executive director at the Food Ethics Council. “There are challenges involved, but I’m a firm believer that a committed and collaborative approach can turn most things from (so-called) ‘too difficult’ to possible. I’d love all the key players to step up and use slower growing breeds,” he added.
