Chicken has been in the news a lot recently with Jamie Oliver and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall highlighting how battery hens are kept. This article details an experiment where five chickens of varying price were cooked in the same way and then served to a panel who rated them on taste. Not surprisingly the Tesco’s cheap £1.99/kg chicken fared worse scoring only 3 out of 10 and with the panel disliking both the taste and texture. Next came the basic butcher’s bird at £2.09/kg which fared slightly better with 3.5 out of 10. This was followed by the supermarket corn fed chicken which once again only scored 3.5 out of 10 but cost more at £4.49/kg. The supermarket organic free chicken did slightly better scoring 6 out of 10. The winner was Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall’s special chicken which costs £4.99/kg but scored 7.5 out of 10. The panel described it as “juicy with light fresh flavour”.
