Truly free range

Pick up a standard chicken in most supermarkets and the package is unlikely to tell you much about how that chicken was produced. Around 90% of chickens in the UK are farmed in intensive systems, unless it clearly states otherwise. The remaining 10% are free range or organic, but are they truly free range? With so many labels on offer – each with different prices and welfare claims – it can be confusing to decide which to buy.

Sutton Hoo Chicken has just launched new labels for both their Free Range and Organic Free Range aimed at helping the customer decipher the confusion around ‘free range’.

Shoppers expect high welfare standards when buying free range but the reality is that welfare standards often fail to meet the expectations of consumers. In a 2007 survey by The Soil Association 96% of free range consumers expected their bird to have been able to run around outside and over 90% to have been reared on fresh grass and in small flocks.

For poultry to be called free range it must comply with standards laid down by EU law. This states that the chickens must have ‘access to open-air runs’ which in some instances of commercial free range production can just be small pop holes around the edges of large barns which have artificial lighting and heating to encourage eating. Large flocks make it hard for birds to leave the shed and roam on fresh pasture so much of the feeding is done indoors.

Sutton Hoo Truly Free Range are different to other free range birds. The traditional reared slow growing breed is reared in small groups based in spacious mobile houses with 24 hour access to over 40 acres of fresh tussocky pasture. They have no artificial lighting or heating and are fed outside, by hand and on a 100% natural and additive free diet. This combination results in a chicken with a wonderful texture and delicious full flavour – ‘as chicken used to taste’!

Sutton Hoo is very proud to announce that its Organic Chicken has won a 2011 Great Taste Gold Award which has been incorporated into the new Organic label.

Belinda Nash, owner of Sutton Hoo Chicken said: “The free range poultry market has grown significantly in the last few years and consumers’ expectations of free range chickens are often not matched by the reality of their welfare standards and in turn their taste. “We wanted to communicate our welfare and free range standards directly to our consumer to help greater understanding of the premium price and make their decision an easy one.”

Sutton Hoo Chickens now reside in 40 acres of pasture next door to the Anglo Saxon Burial Site at Sutton Hoo. After the sudden death of Charles Nash a few years ago, the family are honouring his memory by continuing with the business that he worked so hard to build.

His commitment to the slow process of rearing the beautiful Suffolk Whites is evident in the fragrant smelling chicken houses. Nothing like how I imagined, the chickens are a soothing sight. Quiet clucking and other bock-bock sounds fill the air. The smell is a very pleasant mix of sweet straw and animals. But not strong or overwhelming and certainly not unpleasant. The birds have fresh straw everyday and so the floor becomes a delightfully springy bed.

The chicks come to the farm at a day old from the special hatching unit; they spend their first few weeks in a heated, well ventilated rather posh sheds. They peck and strut around the straw bales; it is only after about four weeks that they are able to venture out side. Nervously they pop out and dare to enjoy the grass and vast open sky. If they were allowed out any earlier they would become rook fodder!

As they become more confident they spend the day foraging for bugs and tasty blades of grass.

This goes on for an average of 12 weeks, their diet, mainly wheat, does not contain antibiotics, growth promoters or drugs of any kind. These birds taste like chicken!

The difference between the Free Range and the Organic Free Range is principally the birds’ diet. “Sutton Hoo” Organic Free Range chickens eat organically grown food and live on organically registered grassland. About a third of their chickens are organic, but all the birds enjoy the great outdoors.

This lifestyle, diet and a naturally slower growing, old-fashioned bird, combine to give the meat a wonderful texture and delicious full flavour.

Richard, who is the farm manager, maintains the fences, cares for the birds and confesses to sitting with the chicks and enjoying a few quiet moments. This is a man who loves his work and I can see the appeal of sitting in the soft straw and have them hopping about, pecking at his boots.

I can’t quite imagine the same pleasure in visiting intensively farmed chickens.

The birds go to Diaper Poultry Ltd, a long established family firm based in Suffolk, they kill about 900 bird a week, many go to London to and they are widely available throughout Suffolk in all good butchers, at the Suffolk Food Hall and Woodbridge Farmer’s market. They are more expensive than your supermarket special, but once you see how they are raised and think of the alternative, it’s a no brainer!

I would rather eat meat a little less often and spend a little more on it! Try my boned stuffed chicken to really make the most of a Sutton Hoo Bird

They also have chicken burgers and sausages made with chicken, rather than pork fat. Delicious and probably rather more healthy. Try a roasted bird for your next Sunday lunch, it won’t cost more than a leg of lamb and you won’t be disappointed. Nominated in the category of Best Suffolk Product in the Suffolk Magazine’s Food and Drink awards we shall have to wait until October the 5th to find our how they get on.