Rachel Johnson's £32 chicken!

[Fifi2022]

Was listening to LBC discussing the cost of living or high salaries, can't remember what. Anyway, she said she bought a chicken from her local butcher for £32! She justified it by saying it was herb fed! I was flabbergasted to say the least.
Do people on a high salary really spend their money like this without any thought?

I was listening to this in the car when she was on. Tom handled that brilliantly, but we were thoroughly entertained by how flabbergasted she seemed, that a herb-fed chicken in a fancy butchers was expensive 😀.

People who have lots of money don't need to consider the price of a chicken.
Or food generally. Some might due through choice of being frugal.
I suspect it probably feels more like spending the average persons equivalent of £3.20. If that.

Given the horrendous animal welfare conditions and grim environmental consequences (notably water and air pollution) of mass produced intensively farmed chickens, I’d rather people with money used it to buy better quality products. I can’t justify a £32 chicken so I just don’t eat meat.

I’ve never spent that much but I suspect that people who can afford £30 on a chicken are pairing it with a £90 bottle of wine which is probably the equivalent of a mere mortal eating £5 chicken with a £15 bottle of wine which works proportionately.

When I was a student in the 1990s I was largely veggie, mainly as meat was so expensive.

We don't eat much meat and while I buy Tesco finest/organic etc, I really can't be bothered to schlep to the local butchers as last time it cost me about 50% of the weekly shop for a few sausages and a piece of beef.

We used to get a turkey from a local farm at Christmas but even cooking for ten they always used to give me a bigger bird than I'd requested, some kind of ostrich I could barely get in the oven. Now we are seven I just get a crown from Waitrose, no mess or waste and they have always been reliable. Last time I got one from Sainsbury's and I'm not making that mistake again. Realised I've never cooked a bad turkey before but it was awful and supposed to be bronze and organic.

It's a life that's been taken. How much do you think that is worth?

I saw a tiktok that said that the rise in Ozempic and super skinny people is to prepare us for the forthcoming years of hunger due to food becoming too expensive to consume

I buy a whole chicken every week, it costs about £22-24. It’s quality meat and feed a family of 4 with a bit leftover for a sandwich the next day.
it has the flavour of an actual chicken and isn’t pumped full of water and the animal has been outside in its short life.
i don’t claim to have the most morals or be holy in any way, I eat meat and think the animal deserves to have at least experienced life beyond being crammed into tiny barns before ending up on my plate. They do also taste far better than a cheap chicken.
We eat quite a lot of meat as a family. When we had less money we ate way less of it food and quality is a priority for us and we didn’t want to compromise on having cheaper meat more regularly.
Everyone has different priorities though.
My mum thinks I’m mad, we always bought free range eggs from the farm nearby and she would tut about extravagance despite being on a very good salary with very low living costs and having a large amount of disposable income. She’s just tight!

My parents as children in the 50s had chicken only once a week as it was expensive. That probably is the true cost of a decent chicken. That said Rachel Johnson is very irritating with her insistence that she's not rich, with her house in Notting hill and her country place

Incredible sausage rolls though.... (probably about £8 these days!)

Ozempic is too expensive to consume...

The supermarket cheap chickens have a really horrific life. So for a decent chicken that has had a nice life that’s about right.
I breed rare breed chickens and £25-30 is the price I charge for a POL hen. I keep the cocks for the table. The herb fed bit baffles me though as mine refuse to eat herbs, they love veg and fruit though

Was in a queue for some bangers at a posh butcher this month and a guy sauntered in and dropped £400.

So yep.

It costs a lot of money to raise poultry ethically and with care rather than to factory farm. Land, housing and feeding the bird which lays the eggs, incubation of eggs, running brooders and heat lamps for chicks. Paying transportation and slaughter costs if you self-process. Then you want to actually be able to pay yourself and your staff a living wage for the full-time job of caring for animals. You can’t do all that and give the consumer a processed bird ready for the oven for £5. We buy (live, for eggs) young ducks direct from a farm at £25 each, and that’s without without any middle men taking their cut to boot up the price.

For somebody on minimum wage who budgets to buy a £5 chicken from Aldi, the idea of buying a £15 chicken from Waitrose might be unthinkable, whilst the affluent Waitrose shopper doesn’t even notice it. £32 is just another step up the income ladder again.

The more money I have, the more expensive the chickens I buy. Because yes, the quality, and welfare standards, of a £32 is much better. But it's been a long time since I routinely bought the most expensive chickens. Rather, my £14 has remained the same, but the quality has gone down.

In Aldi, from about £4.25.

I buy one Duchy Organic chicken a year, for Xmas. It's usually around £22. I'm happy eating less meat that bad quality, poorly treated meat. I am not rich.

£32 for a London chicken doesn't sound that awful and she's loaded anyway.

Sad but true

But sometimes it’s a choice about how you spend money.

i bet most people spend more than that if they go out for a cheap lunch or dinner.

i don’t eat meat now at home as my dd is vegetarian but when we did, we still ate mainly vegeterian and had occasional meat or fish as a treat, trying to buy the highest welfare products possible.

Exactly this!
There is a proportion of people in the UK who are so out of touch with food that they can’t see how they are more than happy to spend money on something else, but the equivalent on food would be seen as ridiculous.
£30 is barely one generic top in a high street shop, or I imagine( I don’t know) a few alcoholic drinks on a night out.

I’ve said this before but people get upset. People in the UK spend almost half as much on food as some of their European counterparts. They think that somehow the poor in the Uk are simply poorer than in other countries, and by making food a more realistic price compared to other items, these people literally wouldn’t be able to afford to eat.

I think paying a lot for a really well-bred chicken is perfectly reasonable, and I’d never buy a cheapo bird; I just do without and have poultry on special occasions only. (Easy choice, as I’ve only myself to please)
I’d happily pay €30 or so for a fresh, plump bird, and it’d provide loads of meals in one way or another.

However, I was taken aback just this week by the cost of a Poulet de Bresse in Dublin. €99. 🙀
I hope that’s largely the cost of flying the things over to Ireland, and that such chickens aren't that costly in GB, but who the hell in Dublin pays that much? (A guinea fowl was about €40, too!)

Anyway, homegrown and properly organic 🍗 is always best 🐓.

This. Not to think about the fact that the cheapest chicken has been pumped full of stuff, that I doubt Rachel's nice chicken would have been.

Yes, I bet it's from Lidgates!

I only buy organic eggs and milk too. I was surprised at the price difference between organic and lower welfare when I looked a few weeks ago. I know people who have holidays and pets but would never buy organic. I'd rather eat food that's better for the environment and for me and miss out in other areas.

I bought a fancy chicken once. It was nice. I wish I could afford them more than once in my life?!