Forward-thinking food businesses are needed as part of new consortium to back trials and research into dual-purpose chicken breeds. By David Burrows.
In the UK, people each eat on average 25kg of chicken meat and 200 eggs annually. These are incredibly popular protein sources.
But the poultry industry faces significant sustainability challenges, including the environmental impacts from its reliance on soy-based feeds, local pollution from manure, and welfare concerns linked to fast-growing and highly productive breeds.
“These birds are not having a great time […] in these systems,” explained Claire Hill from Impeckable Poultry on the ‘Investing in regenerative agriculture and food’ podcast last year.
Hill, alongside her business partner Annie Rayner, are among those trying to bring better birds to our tables. “We need more diversity,” Hill told me recently, because at the moment we don’t have it in the birds, the sheds or in the companies that control our chicken production system.
The pair have just launched a new project to explore the practicalities and sustainability of dual-purpose, pasture-raised poultry as an integrated enterprise for UK farms. This is for food companies who see the ‘Better chicken commitment’ as the first step towards more sustainable meat and eggs.
“Our goal is to create a practical, scalable model for regenerative dual-purpose chicken farming that integrates seamlessly into existing UK farm systems,” explains Rayner. “By addressing both environmental and ethical issues in poultry production, we hope to offer a more sustainable solution that benefits farmers, consumers, and the planet.”
Cracking idea
A dual-purpose bird is one reared for both meat and eggs. Those I spoke to pointed me towards the Organic Breeding Association (Ökologische Tierzucht, or ÖTZ) in Germany where, instead of culling day-old male chicks, rooster and hen are “considered equal” with the male producing meat and the hen, the eggs. The birds also have larger stomachs, adapted to consume 100% organic feed.
Those clutching at wafer-thin margins will balk at the 100 fewer eggs a year from the females, with the (meat) males taking 10 weeks longer to reach a suitable weight (2.5kg ish). However, it’s a more “balanced performance”, ÖTZ notes – for example, the birds can be fed with regional feed and by-products of the farm. The Association says “[e]ggs and meat from dual-purpose chickens are worth their price because they are kind to the animals and the environment”.
Whether the consumer should pay for better chicken, while the intensive, oft-polluting stuff stays artificially cheap, is moot. And big companies like KFC are already warning that they won’t meet their commitments to ‘better chicken’ this year. This includes more space for the birds and the use of slower-growing breeds.
But back to Shropshire, and Rayner and Hill’s 80-acres of ancient trees and rolling pastureland at Planton Farm – their working regenerative mixed farm. When I spoke to them last year we unpicked some of the issues with the current model of poultry farming, including the intensive approaches that are killing our rivers and the free-range systems, which still rely heavily on soya imported from overseas (and too much of it still from land linked to deforestation). Their ambition (like others I spoke to in the ‘regenerative poultry’ space) was to disrupt the system. Hens for example could rear their own young. Imagine that.
This month the wheels on the concept were greased as Planton announced their new project, which also involves Elizabeth Rowe, a researcher from the University of Reading, and Mike Theodorou, of Biosource Consulting and an emeritus chair at Harmer Adams University. They’ll be looking at new feed systems, housing designs and identifying available dual-purpose breeds.
Defra’s Farming Innovation Programme, delivered in partnership with Innovate UK, has kicked off the funding but now they need partners to further fund, scale and bring more expertise to the table – including those from the foodservice and hospitality sector. Those involved in the new ‘consortium of food businesses’ that back the project will gain valuable insights and skills relating to regenerative agriculture, and be part of a group working towards not just better chicken and eggs, but what Rayner and Hill describe as a “better future”. Rayner says: “The consortium will not only accelerate our research but also create a dynamic community of expert stakeholders committed to pioneering sustainable and regenerative poultry farming in the UK and beyond.”
Sunny side up
This will all take time, trials and tribulations. But it is testament to places like Planton and people like Hill and Rayner that work is already looking beyond better chickens and towards the best chickens within better systems. They just need food companies with the belief to buy into it too.
