Godley and Williams provide a fascinating account of the chicken industry’s industrialisation in the latter 20th century. They remind us that chicken had long been considered a luxury product. In fact, even as late as the 1950s, poultry made up only 1% of the total meat consumed in Britain. 

By 1980, however, chicken consumption had been steadily growing at a rate of 10% per annum whilst overall meat consumption remained stagnant. As a result, chicken replaced meats like beef, mutton, and bacon in the British diet to make up a quarter of the total market share. This rapid and substantial adoption of chicken meat in the latter 20th century was ‘one of the most remarkable transformations in modern agriculture’. 

This was largely achieved by the industrialisation of chicken farming, or in Godley and Williams’ words: by ‘shackling the variation and fragility of a biological mechanism – a bird – to the routines and order of a highly capitalised modern flow of production.’ 

Intensively farmed breeds of egg-laying and meat chickens were imported from the US, and used to kickstart the factory farming of these birds in the UK. This rigorous selective breeding process in the US – which even involved a national ‘Chicken of Tomorrow’ breeding contest – was fuelled by a desire to maximise productivity, and therefore profitability. It literally created new species of birds that ran against the grain of natural evolution, but were highly specialised to intensive farming environments. 

In addition to selective breeding, the introduction of antibiotics to chicken feed further increased the productivity of chicken farming, reducing mortality and disease spread, increasing stocking densities, and promoting even faster growth. 

The results quickly transformed the landscape of poultry farming. In 1957, almost 90% of all poultry were farmed in flocks fewer than 1,000, with 40% in flocks fewer than 200. By 1960, this figure had fallen from 90% to 75%. By 1966, flocks of 200 or less had died out, and over 50% of all farmed poultry were in flocks of 5,000 or greater. Broilers were particularly intensively farmed: almost 40% of broiler chickens were in flocks of 100,000 or greater. With production significantly increasing, processing scale grew with it, to such an extent that processing companies became significant players in poultry production. In less than a decade, advances in genetic selection and the supplementation of animal feed with antibiotics had transformed the poultry sector into a highly industrialised system.

Beyond production methods, the influence of retailers in fostering consumer acceptance marks a further critical juncture in the industry’s evolution. 

The authors particularly note the role of Sainsbury’s, an influential British retailer that invested heavily in persuading the public to adopt intensively farmed chicken. In doing so, it was important to dispel the conception of chicken as an expensive, occasional luxury. The 1958 ‘Chicken is Cheap’ campaign saw intensively farmed chickens lining retailer windows at low prices, opening up the protein to more price-sensitive consumers. The campaign is said to have facilitated a ‘dramatic’ increase in demand. 

This forms one of the article’s central – and most valuable – arguments: that the rise of industrialised chicken should not be attributed to innovations in production methods alone. The role of retailers in bringing these products to consumers was also key. 

In time, this combination of innovations in production methods (genetic selection, feedstuff medicalisation, livestock intensification) and support from retailers in communicating the resulting product to consumers facilitated a significant shift in consumption. 

Between 1956-1964 poultry saw a significant drop in price, from 60 pence per pound to just over 40 pence per pound, reaching price parity with staple meats such as beef, bacon, and ham in 1959. Interestingly, consumption habits lagged somewhat behind the falling price of chicken. Despite innovators experimenting with new methods of poultry production from 1951, by 1956 per-capita consumption remained stagnant at 1% of meat consumed. Even with the rise in chicken consumption in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the consumption of traditional animal proteins such as beef, lamb, and bacon were not immediately displaced. These trends took a significant amount of time, and effort on the part of poultry advocates, to play out. 

As previously stated, a key part of this article’s argument is that, despite the substantial reduction in price, the public did not immediately accept this new ‘technological’ chicken. As a result, both producers and retailers were tasked with a challenge familiar to alternative protein advocates today: convincing consumers to accept a novel form of protein.

The idea of industrial chicken farms that fed a medicalised diet of hormones, antibiotics and other additives led to widespread concern about the food’s long-term consequences to human health. One journal denigrated the practice of medicalising animal diets as ‘the unnatural feeding of animals’.²

The conditions of industrial chicken farms drew the ire of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which campaigned against battery-farming in egg-laying flocks as early as the late 1950s. Animal Machines, an attack on the intensive farming of chickens and other terrestrial animals, was published in 1964, with its critique of industrial farming practices being widely read.³ 

Dr. Robert F. Gordon, from the Houghton Poultry Research Station, levied a critique of industrialised chicken on the basis of the excessive use of additives that is reminiscent of attacks against some alternative protein products today. 

‘Intensivism can lead to a potential increase in hazards not only from infectious diseases but from nutritional deficiencies… [W]e are in an era of food additives, vitamins, amino acids, prophylactics, and therapeutics, antibiotics, oestrogens and growth stimulants.’⁴

To many consumers, then, industrial poultry farming was becoming associated with a potential risk to human and public health. 

In response, the continued success of the industry is attributed to J. Sainsbury: the ‘key intermediary in the British poultry market’. The retailer represented consumer interests and directed the industry, particularly via processors, to the extent that ‘in no food sector did Sainsbury intervene more than in poultry’.  The supermarket giant, incentivised by the potential for poultry sales and profits, used its reputation and authority to convince consumers to eat industrialised chicken.

 It took a strict line on the chemical content of poultry with suppliers, and used its pre-existing relationship of trust with consumers to help convince them that their chicken was not only cheap, but also safe. The power of this influential retailer in alleviating consumer concerns and facilitating increased consumption was, in this case, key. 

This article provides a valuable historical case study of food system change. Over the course of roughly 2 decades, the price of poultry fell significantly and consumption subsequently increased. Innovations in production methods in the early 1950s gave way to a rapidly intensified poultry industry that facilitated these changes. In tandem, retailers capitalised on the prospect of ‘cheap chicken’, alleviating public concern and strategically communicating the product to consumers. 

Viewing a case of food system change from this historical perspective can provide useful learnings for alternative protein advocates.

It took years of production innovations before the price of chicken began to fall. A decade passed until it reached price parity with other conventional meats, and many more years still before per capita consumption of chicken was greater than them. 

Alternative protein advocates should recognise the scale of the task before them (which is arguably even greater than the one poultry advocates faced, since many alternative proteins are truly novel proteins), and expect shifts in consumption to take time.

Likewise, this should moderate the views of those who assume that the recent short-term slowdown in the growth of the alternative protein industry signifies its inherent inability to significantly change consumption norms. Indeed, it is rare for any industry to experience uninterrupted growth, and current growth data for the alternative protein industry shows a clear S-curve that is typical of the adoption of new products.⁵

Consumers did not immediately trust the ‘technological chicken’. This can seem a surprise from today’s standpoint, where chicken is generally perceived as the normal and natural baseline against which alternatives are judged. But when first introduced to new production processes and additives, consumers were skeptical, and their trust had to be earned.

Again, the challenge of earning consumer trust and acceptance is a familiar one to alternative protein advocates. Advocates should (and broadly do) recognise that innovative products are not enough, and that consumer trust is crucial to widespread adoption. 

Sainsbury’s, a leading British retailer, used their authority and pre-existing brand recognition to alleviate consumer concerns and build trust in this new product.

Similarly, today, alternative protein advocates should work with retailers to ensure novel protein products are provided and communicated effectively to foster consumer trust and acceptance. 

The rise of industrial chicken is a valuable example of recent historical food system change. As we seek to change the protein we consume once again, a historical outlook provides an important perspective on how this change can be made.