Animal protection charity Open Cages has filed a criminal complaint against a chicken farm that supplies to major UK supermarkets after it was filmed breaching animal welfare regulations.
Tom Herok documented his employment as a worker on the Lincolnshire farm using a hidden camera from July to September 2022, and found that birds were being ‘run over’ and killed by a forklift while being transported.
Open Cages has said the farm breaches The Animal Welfare Act and both The Welfare of Farmed Animals and Welfare of Animals During Transport regulations.
The farm provides chicken to Two Sisters, which is a supplier used by supermarkets including Tesco, Asda, Aldi and Co-op.
Two Sisters also supplied Lidl with a small amount of fresh chicken, however the discount grocer said this contract ended “sometime ago”, The Mirror reported.
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Workers were filmed collecting dozens of eviscerated birds and revealed that the fast-growing chickens, which are slaughtered at six weeks old, suffer from ‘broken legs’, ‘heart attacks’, ‘suffocation’, ‘arthiritis’, ‘deformities,’ and chemical burns from urine ‘burning their feet all the time’.
Open Cages has urged retailers to adopt the Better Chicken Commitment (BCC) standards.
The BCC is a set of improved chicken welfare standards backed by the RSPCA and supported by the UK government.
Supermarkets including M&S, Waitrose and Lidl France are among over 550 companies to have signed up.
