Free-range chickens come home to roost

So Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall tried to turn his sleepy town of Axminster into Britain’s first free-range town. He sort of succeeded – 60 per cent of chickens sold that one week were free-range – but the real success will be whether the good intentions continue.

I watched each of the programmes intently and thought it presented a worthwhile opportunity to dissect his approach.

Top marks for effort Mr Fearnley-Whittingstall and well done for trying nearly every trick in the book – community engagement,
third party endorsements, media coverage to name a few. There were a few gaps though (not least using social media) and most of all he failed to choose a message that his audience would grasp. Axminster’s seemingly down-at-heel population cared more about the cost than the quality of their chicken so banging on about animal welfare was unlikely to ring true with many.

What would I have done differently? Well, firstly I’d have drawn upon the local advocates much more – handing out flyers is rarely going to make a difference – and I would have given away more free-range chicken to highlight the taste benefit. An extension to the avenues he chose could have been to persuade Tesco or another retailer to cut the cost temporarily of free-range to encourage more to buy it (his own shop could have led the way). Equally, he could have produced information packs with recipe guides to demonstrate how versatile a chicken is – assuaging the concerns of those who felt they couldn’t afford the higher cost.

As a final point, I was dismayed by the supermarkets’ refusal to engage with Hugh. It strikes me that if you sell a product you should have no qualms in explaining why you do. There seems no reason why you shouldn’t sell battery-farmed chicken if your customers demand it – in which case stand up and be counted rather than shying away.