The animal protection charity protested outside KFC’s flagship restaurant in London’s Leicester Square on Saturday (15 February) and says that a ‘nationwide weekend of action’ against the chain is planned for next month.
One protester donned a chicken suit, another dressed up to parody KFC executives, and others held banners and placards calling for an end to Frankenchickens, controversial chickens raised for meat which have been selectively bred to grow extremely large, extremely quickly, reaching slaughter weight in around 35 days.
Last year, KFC said it could not switch to slower-growing breeds because the UK poultry industry is ‘not yet in an operational or commercial position’ to deliver such an ambition.
THL UK says that the protests are partly in response to the praise and publicity that KFC received for signing up to the Better Chicken Commitment in 2019.
“KFC has benefited from half a decade of welfare washing. They agreed to give chickens better lives, and now they’re backpedalling,” says THL UK managing director Sean Gifford.
“Now we need action, and a concrete roadmap for change. The Frankenchickens you still find chopped up in KFC buckets are birds who grow unnaturally large. They live in their waste, which can burn their skin; they often struggle with lameness and so can hardly walk. Breeding them to suffer in this way is the definition of animal cruelty.”
KFC says that it ‘remains committed’ to ensuring greater animal welfare standards but did not provide a timeline for switching to slower-growing birds.
