Why is chicken so cheap?

People eat 65 billion chickens every year. It is the fastest-growing meat product. Yet pound for pound the price of chicken has fallen sharply. How has this happened?

Chickens are the most populous bird on the planet. There are 23 billion of them at any given time - that's ten times more than any other bird. It's by far the fastest growing meat product but pound for pound the price of chicken has fallen sharply. How has this happened?

This farm is at the forefront of a technology revolution that has drastically changed chicken farming. It's run by David Speller who's pioneered the use of CCTV and CO2 monitors in chicken sheds. Along with his own farm, he works as a consultant overseeing the raising of around 3 million chickens in the UK.

Chickens were first domesticated over 8,000 years ago but it wasn't until the 1940s that major efforts were made to create a super breed. The chicken of tomorrow competition in America would change chickens forever.

Today the lifecycle of broilers, chickens that are bred purely for their meat, is entirely preordained. They grow faster and bigger than ever before and they can only live supported by human technology. Chickens have changed so quickly they are now four times the size they were in the 1950s.

A barnyard chicken can live up to 10 years showing the huge evolutionary change the broilers have undergone. But selective breeding on a global scale comes at a cost. If the chickens live beyond their planned life they develop huge medical problems. And there are concerns the chicken industry is relying on an increasingly small gene pool.

Keeping chickens in battery cages was banned in the EU in 2012 but some people want to create better lives for broiler chickens. Free-range birds have more access to open air runs, while organic chickens are typically free from antibiotics, hormones and other synthetic chemicals. Organic chickens get to live the longest - 81 days compared to intensively reared birds which live between 35 and 40 days. Free-range chickens get the most access to open air runs but when it comes to living space, organic and free-range fair far better than intensively reared birds where as many as 17 adult birds live in a single square metre.

Organic farming might offer animals a greater quality of life but consumers are largely driven by cost and in an average UK supermarket, an intensively reared chicken cost several times less than its free-range or organic cousins.

Over 95% of broiler chickens are intensively reared in the UK. Organic and free-range chickens make up the rest. For as long as shoppers want cheap and plentiful chicken, they will continue to be bred ever more intensively.

[g.c.t.v]

All the chickens you see there are dead by now

[scareleague]

People: chickens should roam free without any cages.
also people: why is this cage free chicken so expensive?

[nateriver]

People : Chickens deserve better lives!
Also people : I want the cheapest chicken you got.

[yourstoryteller]

when you sacrifice your life for them, but they still call you cheap

[afarhan]

Refuses to call chickens cheap because they are animals. Then goes ahead and calls them a product.

[brokenwizards]

4x since 1950.

A few more decades and we can finally see that horse-sized chicken.

[billdooder]

Oddly enough, the people eating them are now also 4x the size they were in the 1950's

[sanchitrastogi]

Chiken is not even a animal anymore, it's just a crop that non vegetarians grow!

[boosay]

Cats and Dogs: Let's ensure our species survival by being men best friend!

Chicken: Hold my grains.

"chickens have changed so quickly, they are now four times the size they were in the 1950's" same as the average American :D

[yunguangjin]

Everyday YouTube algorithm is giving me more and more random stuff and I ain't even mad.

[stephencoleman]

I worked for a well known chain of intensive chicken factory farms. 2 men cared for 500, 000 chickens. The chickens were sold as organic free range, but they were not organic or free range. I had to sign a non-disclosure contract for the job and was prohibited from speaking to the press. I detested the job, not because of smells, flies. poor pay or dead chickens. It was because the chickens had more personality than the supervisors.

[Danny-liht]

Farmer: “these chickens aren’t cheap they have worth”

The Economist: “why are chickens so cheap”

[adan]

Poor chicken. They're too delicious to live on this world

[Johnniewalker]

Calling all chickens cheap is kind of rude. Some are just frugal.

[dylanhilton]

"Why is chicken so cheap" Looks at KFC actually being overpriced....

[MFRiley]

That's how I know I'm broke... I think chicken is expensive..

[DesertVox]

The whole 'ANIMAL RIGHTS' issue gets black-holed in this case. Otherwise, 1 mistreated dog will get 1, 000 media-hours coverage.

[ramandeepsingh]

I love how they try to make the video less cruel using music 😂

[Yorosero]

Back in the day my Chinese parents and grandparents could only afford a chicken on special days like Chinese New Year and even then that was split between 6 siblings, with the best part going to the youngest. Now a whole chicken costs about a £5 which is significantly less than an hour's work worth of wages.