Supermarkets are so keen to offer us low price chicken that, with some 'buy-one-get-one-free' offers, a roast bird is cheaper than a pint of beer.
But, according to Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall the real cost of cheap chicken is much more worrying. Most of Britain's chicken is produced indoors in intensive factory farm conditions that deprive the animals of anything resembling a natural life. The birds' lifespan takes them from newly hatched chick to slaughter weight in about 39 days.
As far as Hugh is concerned at the heart of it all are the supermarkets whose winning combination of cost and convenience, have changed high streets across the country. They say that are simply serving up what the customer wants and expects. Hugh tries to engage with the supermarkets to get them to change their pricing policies and to convince their customers to pay more for a higher welfare chicken.
Starting with the residents of his local town, Axminster and local supermarket, Tesco, Hugh begins his mission to convert chicken eaters to a free-range future and create the UK's first free-range town.
Hugh also meets the residents of the Millwey Estate: enthusiastic cheap chicken buyers who Hugh hopes will see the light by rearing their own flock of laying hens and meat birds on a disused allotment at the edge of the estate.
Not content with just speaking to the locals, Hugh also spreads the free-range word to the employees at one of Axminster's biggest employers, where he challenges the ladies who run the works canteen to abandon the oven-ready fodder they currently use in order to feed the warehouse staff with locally sourced free range chicken.
And in a move that takes him far from his River Cottage ideals, he takes the extraordinary step of building his own intensive unit, and a free range unit to compare first hand, the effect of rearing techniques on the chicken we buy.
If you've watched the show, what's more important to you, the welfare of the chicken you eat or the price? Have your say
Confused by all the chicken labelling jargon? Get the facts behind the labels
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More on Hugh's campaign
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