The UK's KFC Chicken 'Crisis' and eating Meat

Apparently the UK has run out of Chicken. Okay, they have not run out of chicken as such. But KFC has a supply chain problem of such monumental proportions that they are unable to get chicken to all their 900 stores. At last count,

160 stores across the UK had been forced to closed. Some news sites are reporting that 640 branches were shut at the height of the crisis.  

This has been big news and hard to miss. As a vegan, and user of social media, I have good reason to believe that my world view is skewed towards vegetarian-friendly news. It is certainly true that I rarely hear much about what’s happening in the world of chicken-eating. At the same time, my news feed is filled with inspiring stories of people turning vegetarian, or opening successful vegan businesses.

So what lessons might I take away from the biggest chicken-eating-related story of the decade?

1.     People will not give up their chicken lightly.

Under normal condition, in a three-month period, an estimated 43% of Britons will buy takeaway from a fast food restaurant that sells chicken.  

As the chicken drought took hold this week, news reports out of the UK suggest that some chicken meat lovers had become so distraught that they turned to the police for help. Both London and Manchester police issued statements saying that a lack of chicken does not come under their perve, and that fast food junkies should stop calling. Of course, it may be withdrawal from the secret herbs and spices that is actually causing the distress. After all, many other fast food restaurants also sell chicken.

But it seems clear that the thought of going without your favourite chicken meat for a couple of days is highly destabilising for some. According to the Metro newspaper, a bucket of KFC chicken currently fetches around £100, on e-Bay.

2.      The world is not on the cusp of turning vegan.

While I dearly hope that one day future generations will mock me for making this claim, based on the evidence available now, I think it is unlikely.

It seems to me that the number of people who identify as vegan, vegetarian, or who simply have meat free days, is increasing. But that increase is small compared to global population increases and the number of people eschewing traditional diet in favour of meat-heavy western diets. Moreover, what the KFC crisis tells me is that for some people meat eating is such a deeply entrenched behaviour that an alternative is unthinkable.  

3.     Harm minimisation via legislation is vitally important.

Meat eating is a deeply harmful practice. Broiler chickens are among the most miserable of all factory farmed animals. Their lives are short, and then they are killed to become nuggets. Meat is also environmentally harmful. It is water intensive, linked to de-forestation, and responsible for an estimated 18% of human produced greenhouse gas.

Yet many people are deeply committed to meat-eating.

There is a debate that rages among animal advocates about the best way to stop (or minimise) meat consumption. On one view, the state has failed to act, and therefore the way forward is to address individuals not as citizens, but as consumers. Get people to ‘do the right thing’ at the checkout.

I commend those who spend their time trying to make the world a better place in this way. But I simply cannot imagine the type of person who phones the police because their local KFC is closed for week, turning vegan.

In my opinion, we must also insist that the government shows leadership. We need to ask law makers to use their power (which we give them) to make the lives of broiler hens less horrible. This approach is unlikely to save them from death. But we can also insist that their death be less gruesome. We can punish those who do not comply. We can also ask the state to include environmental externalities in the cost of meat production.

So while the UK wakes to another day of KFC rations, the lesson for me is that meat-eating stirs great passion in some. But that passion is destructive. While I don’t know that I can persuade enthusiastic meat-eaters to like tofu. I do think it is reasonable for law makers to insist that meat-eaters take responsibility for the harm they do. It worked for cigarettes. Let’s try it with meat.

The UK's long history of animal protection and animal harm

Soon after arriving in Birmingham, England's second largest city, I headed out for lunch. The closest eating area was the local shopping centre called 'The Bull Ring'.

Arriving at the Bull Ring, and seeing the magnificent statue of an angry bull, I was immediately reminded of the UK's long history of animal harm and animal protection.

The world's first modern animal protection statute, 'Martin's Act' was an act of the UK Parliament. Martin's Act became law in 1822, following many attempts to create legal protection for urban animals, particularly beasts of burden and animals used in sports and entertainment. Two years later, in 1824, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was founded. It would later become the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSCPA).

More radical aspects of the contemporary animal protection movement also have their origins in the UK, most notably the Oxford Group which meet in the 1960s and 70s. That group gave us terms such as 'speciesism' and was also where Peter Singer began thinking about the issues he would later articulate in his book Animals Liberation (1975). 

But while the UK has a proud history of animal protection, it also has a dark past.

The Bull Ring is most likely where bull baiting was conducted in Birmingham in the 17th and 18th centuries. 

Here is a definition of bull baiting by Mike Radford who wrote a history of animal welfare laws in the UK:

Bull-baiting involved tying a bull to a stake and setting one or more dogs upon it, the object being for the dogs to get hold of, and hang on to, the bull’s nose. Other animals used for baiting included bears and badgers. Bull-running was a variation on this, during which a bull was chased through the town until it became exhausted, whereupon dogs were set upon it (Radford 2001:18).

Here is a description of the practice, that appeared in the magazine 'Rural Sports', probably in the late 18th century:

The animal is fastened to a stake driven into the ground for the purpose, and about seven or eight yards of rope left loose, so as to allow him sufficient liberty for the fight. In this situation a bulldog is slipped at him, and endeavours to seize him by the nose; if the bull be well practised at the business, he will receive the dog on the horns, throw him off, and sometimes kill him; but, on the contrary, if the bull is not very dexterous, the dog will not only seize him by the nose, but will cling to his hold till the bull stands still; and this is termed pinning the bull. What are called good game bulls are very difficult to be pinned, being constantly on their guard, and placing their noses closer to the ground, they receive their antagonist on their horne; and it is astonishing to what distance they will sometimes throw him (cited in Fairholm and Pain 1924:75-76). 

I wonder how many people who shop at the modern day Bull Ring are aware of the shopping centre’s dark past. I also wonder how many spare a thought for all the bulls that must have suffered over many hundreds of years, right in the centre of Birmingham.