ANIMAL rights campaigners and farmers have attacked supermarket giant Tesco for slashing the price of chickens to less than £2.

The supermarket chain has reduced standard whole birds from £3.30 to £1.99 until Sunday. But Compassion in World Farming (CIWF) and the RSPCA said the birds could have been reared in poor conditions.

This is despite Tesco having to double its order for chickens bred to higher welfare standards after running out of free range birds in some stores following a campaign by Channel 4 chefs Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Jamie Oliver.

Tesco's Jonathan Church, said: "No one should feel guilty for buying a chicken just because it is good value. The only reduction we make is in the price - not the welfare."

But Dr Lesley Lambert, of the CIWF, criticised Tesco for not discounting its higher welfare chickens instead of standard birds. She said: "If Tesco is prepared to drop prices in this way, why don't they decrease it on the higher welfare chickens and make that more accessible to poorer consumers?"

The RSPCA last month urged retailers to stop selling cheap chicken meat from birds reared in poor conditions. It wants supermarkets to drop standard chicken completely in favour of free-range, organic and Freedom Food varieties.

A National Farmers' Union spokesman said: "It's extremely ill-judged and short-sighted. They're devaluing the product and doing it at a time when, overall, the market is strengthening and chicken prices are rising."

Tesco said higher welfare chickens now made up 30 per cent of its chicken sales - an increase of 70 per cent. An RSPCA spokesman said: "Cheap chicken isn't the answer. We strongly encourage shoppers not be tempted by the discount."

Read more on this issue via the links on the right of this page.