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OK, this blog isn’t actually about financial services and even though I don’t normally make New Year’s resolutions, this is something I care about so decided to depart from the norm, make a resolution and stick to it.
We decided a few years ago, chez nous, not to eat any more chicken or eggs unless they were free range. Easy to do, because there is so much choice out there. But then in 2007 we decided to take this to the next stage and not to eat any cooked or pre prepared produce that contained any chicken or egg products that were not stated to be free range either bought from shops of in restaurants.
What a can of worms that opened up! Nearly everything that you buy in the shops that contains chicken or eggs, including such innocent seeming things like cakes, snack bars, soups, stock cubes, muffins, and so on, that contain eggs or chicken use battery produce. Many restaurants also use battery chicken in their dishes, especially at the lower price range. And nearly all breakfast cafes use battery eggs too.
I wrote to the big stores and manufacturers to ask them specifically about their stance on battery produce, and even stores like M&S, which makes a great play of its ethical stance on so many things, was unable to reassure me on this point although I gather this is changing.
The worst offender was Boots the Chemist, who wrote me a long email explaining how its products use chicken and eggs that meet minimum welfare standards, but all they were actually saying was that they use battery produce from legal sources.
I am compiling a list of all the replies I’ve had to this project, so if anyone would like a copy let me know.
So my New Year’s Resolution for 2008 is my own version of TCF: “Treating Chickens Fairly”.