Categories: uncategorized
Date: 27 June 2008 12:53:53
The YV Chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall is today asking Tesco's shareholders to insist that all chickens supplied to the supermarket chain are raised in accordance with the RSPCA's Freedom Farm standard and not farmed intensively.
Tesco are famous for bringing us the £1.99 chicken and are able to do this by allowing suppliers to rear chickens in cramped "battery" farmed conditions. However, Tesco insist that this is a silly campaigbn as their suppliers already produce in line with the highest possible standards in modern farming. Therefore they have no need to change.
In the next breath their spokesman said that if the proposal is forced through then they would face higher costs that could lead too an additional £1.00 on the price of a chicken.
Do you notice something wrong here?
In one breath they already comply with the highest standards in modern farming but in the next compliance would cost an addition £1.00 per chicken. How can this be if they are already compying with the standard? The campaign propably won't succeed because you need 75% shareholder sgreement to force this through - many big institutions would not want to see prospective profits fall, and the shareprice drop as a result.
Anyway it does show how duplicitous Tesco are in the way they deal with the public. They insist they are whiter than white but then complain that meeting the standard would increase their costs. I don't think that Tesco are doing anything positive to correct their public image of being a bullying profiteer.
History Today:
1743 : George II defeats the French at the Battle of Dettingen, becoming the last British monarch to lead his army in battle. Now we just bring our royalty home when the press find out where they are.
1905 : The crew of the Potemkin mutiny in Odessa. They inspire a wider revolution and many set pieces in Brian de Palma films - The Untouchables and Carlitto's Way being 2 of them.
1957 : A British Medical Research Council report suggests a direct link between smoking and lung cancer.