No Spring chicken

Roast chicken is an iconic dish in British culture. It probably ranks close to the top of most people's list of favourite foods. It may be affordable for the masses, but it is also fit for a king.

But how many of you know about the life your fresh supermarket chickens lead before they reach your table? That their short, intensively farmed indoor existence is managed like a factory production line, to ensure the big retailers can sell them to you for as little as £2 a bird? Is that all the life an animal, born and raised to feed us, is worth?

Help change the system read more about the campaign here.

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall: Hero or Villain?

Article published in The Independent on Sunday, 13th January 2008

'A tear at prime time may melt mountains. For Hillary Clinton it was just a matter of getting back to pole position in the race to be the world's most powerful person. But Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's sobs on Channel 4 on Monday night may end up liberating an entire species. His weeping over the fate of a sub-standard chick, shortly to die graphically on Hugh's Chicken Run, may yet end the era of cheap poultry products in this country: on Wednesday the Government announced it would, after eight years of prevarication, implement the EU regulation banning battery-farmed eggs by 2012. If the millions of the chickens reared for meat are similarly spared, they - or their descendants - will have much to be thankful for.