KFC Wants to Kill Its Chickens More Humanely

KFC wants to make its chicken more ethical

The Colonel wants to make finger-lickin’ good fried chicken that does some kind of good too. KFC is the first fast food chain to sign up to the straightforwardly named European Chicken Commitment, which ties signatories to a series of welfare improvement initiatives that must be implemented throughout supply chains by 2026. A particular point of note is that it will require restaurants and supermarkets to commit to purchasing slower growing breeds than are currently most common in fast food supply chains, as well as “providing perches, pecking objects such as straw and vegetables, and natural daylight.”

KFC’s chicken welfare standards have been scrutinised and described as some of the worst out there several times in recent years, most notably in the 2015 documentary Billion Dollar Chicken Shop. The chain has always claimed to meet U.K. and E.U. standards; those standards will be tightened and increased by this commitment. The move is likely to increase pressure on McDonald’s, Tescos, and Sainsbury’s, especially given that KFC’s outsize reputation doesn’t hold up when it comes to chicken volume: its supply chain accounts for only 4 percent of chicken supplied in the U.K. [Guardian]

And in other news...

• Liu Xiaomian’s acclaimed chongqing noodles will arrive at craft beer pub the Holborn Whippet at the start of August.
• A new Shoreditch restaurant called No Idea wants to blur the line between sweet and savoury.
• One of London’s essential restaurants thrills critic Jay Rayner with food that “slaps you around the chops, then slaps you again.”
• The New Yorker’s Helen Rosner namechecks U.K. chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall on her list of the ten best cookbooks published this century. [The New Yorker]
• London chef Neil Rankin wants to throw his ‘simplicity’ burger into the mix with Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat. [Big Hospitality]
• McDonald’s is leading the way as fast-food chains trial license plate scanning for repeat customers, which doesn’t have any dystopian connotations at all. [Financial Times]
• Good tweet: