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?

Yip it’s how we spend it - albeit my weekly butcher chicken is about £25 (and does two meals). my local mates think nothing of dropping £60 on some nice beef rib for a week night supper for the family (mum dad and two kids).

I’m not a Rachel Johnstone fan but it seems like an entirely reasonable thing to spend money on if you can. Far rather an ethically reared animal than factory farmed. For a life of a chicken, the butchery etc it is probably not that excessive. I think we have been swayed for too long by cheap, shit, unethical meat. I’d rather eat good meat once a week than cheap meat more frequently.

If I were to buy chicken, I'd rather do so once a month and get the Very Expensive version than the far cheaper, sad chicken that's had a shit life living in squalor. Cheap meat is not a good thing.

I live a really frugal life but will spend about that on a chicken.

Meat is a rare treat for me and I would rather I paid a fair price to reflect the work of the farmer and butcher who are both local to me. I like that the money goes back into the local economy.

I keep hens myself, but only for eggs, and buying a chicken that had been kept in awful conditions and led a short, miserable life would be dreadful. If a cheap, supermarket hen that had a hell of a life was the only option I would never eat chicken.

Rachel Johnson was brought up on Exmoor and still has a house there now. She is amongst farming folk there and shouldn't be surprised by the cost of good, ethical produce.

Can I ask how you dispatch the chickens and butcher them ready for eating?

I like the idea of my own chickens and I have the space, but the practicalities of end-of-life scare me somewhat!

This chicken is £22, so I suppose £32 for a particularly large bird raised in very high welfare conditions isn't insane. Nice to be able to afford it.

It's not something I care to think about too closely. All I can do is try and buy free range etc.

I think a lot of us probably bury our heads in the sand.

I spend £20-25 on an organic, free-range chicken weekly. Which works out at less than £3 per portion. £32 seems feasible for a fancier London bird. It's probably represents the true cost of rearing animals humanely for meat. I'd rather not eat chicken at all than support the battery farming industry.

I think if you can afford it, then it’s good to spend your extra wealth on food which is ethically produced. The same for clothing or other purchases.

There is a long list of things Rachel Johnson has done that are highly objectionable.

Purchasing this chicken isn't one of them

What has she done that is objectionable please?

Sounds about right for ethically raised meat. Not that it's something I can afford.

I find it far more problematic that it is even possible to buy a whole chicken for under £5. The welfare conditions for mass produced meat are absolutely appalling. Better to go without than to knowingly eat it.

I agree. If I had £32 to spend on chicken, I'd absolutely spend £32 on chicken. Instead, I just don't eat it because I suspect that any chicken that doesn't cost £32 has had a pretty miserable, and probably very short life.

why not dip your toes into the magical world of internet search engines?

I think we've just got so used to food in general being artificially cheap, that paying 'above the odds' for something that's (hopefully) had a decent life seems crazy to many.

Food is going up in price quickly, but I hope that's because producers are demanding a fairer price for their product, which means they cqn pass this on in fairer wages, rather than simply supermarkets making more profits.

Unfortunately, this is also pricing out the poorest.

Meat, especially, though, used to be a once a week treat.

I do think we eat far too much of it nowadays (myself uncluded), partly because it's so cheap, and I'm pretty sure that's not good for us.

I've had an interest in her for years since I read an article in the Sunday papers about her at university and have read all her books. I'm not aware of anything 'objectionable'. What should I search for? You feel strongly about this. Give me a steer.

@GreenGodiva do you mind saying or pm-ing whereabouts you are as I'm always looking out for good places to buy better quality meat that won't bankrupt me?

It just kind of happens as your income goes up. The point at which you think “is this a reasonable amount to pay?” migrates upwards because you have more disposable income. We were a high income family and didn’t think too much about spending £1,000 for a day trip on the Northern Belle for instance. Our income has changed now due to life choices and I’ve just received a Christmas jumper for £3 off Vinted because I couldn’t justify spending £20 for short term use. The reality is that a lot of people who earn more cease to recognise how much money they waste but they also cease to recognise what it is to be hard up - as it witnessed by the raft of threads from well off folk this week!!

Did she say how large the chicken was? That's also pretty relevant. I mean, you can order a £70 chicken from a butcher near where we live, but the chicken would weigh up to 6 kilos!

The term ‘ethical meat’ always made me laugh. The animal was happy and well fed… before we slaughtered it.

I just don’t understand meat consumption all together so this is a bit lost on me. What I will say is if you grew up rich as she did, she won’t even consider that a luxury.

Presumably the chicken fed four people so at £8/head that's not bad - certainly compared to eating out, or even buying a sandwich and coffee.

So many people on MN think nothing of ordering in pizzas which, according to Dominos website, are £14 each.

At the risk of sounding horribly pretentious,I have just discovered venison. Found a local farm shop place which has a butcher and I thought I would give venison a try. I was tempted by the ingredients list on the pack of venison burgers which was venison,salt pepper. And that's it. I am now hooked. The meat is no more expensive than beef and very tasty and low fat. It sounds terribly grand to me,raised on council house fare,but actually I like the taste,the healthiness,the animal welfare and the cost!

Whilst I entirely take your point, farm animals would not exist if nobody ate them or used the products that come from them. I've worked on farms (small scale, highest standards of welfare) where the animals were incredibly well cared and had really good lives from birth to death, every aspect carried out with utmost compassion.

The options are -

• no animals
• animals kept to the highest possible standards (more expensive)
• animals treated like a commodity. (cheap).

In a world where nothing is perfect I suppose a choice has to be made. The latter option is the worst in my opinion.

That is what it costs to ethically raise animals. All this whining about the cost just pressures farmers and shops to reduce welfare standards and produce meat as cheap as possible. Eating high welfare organic meat is a non-negotiable for us - we will cut other things or cut the amount of meat we eat rather than go battery farmed.