UK turns to imported chicken as demand surges
Date: 1405-03-20 20:00Financial Times
Producers blame restrictive planning rules and more stringent welfare regulations for limiting domestic expansion
The UK is importing more than twice as much chicken by value as it did five years ago as domestic production struggles to keep pace with the public’s growing appetite for the meat.
The trend has intensified producers’ complaints about planning restrictions and led to concerns about welfare standards.
Much of the rise in imports has come from the Netherlands and Poland, as well as non-EU countries such as Ukraine, Brazil and Thailand, where welfare rules are generally more relaxed than in the UK.
“Year-on-year we’re seeing a 4.5 to 5 per cent increase in demand for chicken. And the problem that we’re really running into now is that we do not have the capacity to keep up,” said Richard Griffiths, chief executive of the British Poultry Council.
While UK chicken production has expanded significantly over recent decades, the growth rate slowed to 1.5 per cent in 2025.
Imports of chicken hit £1.78bn last year, up from £823.7mn in 2020, according to the latest government trade statistics.
“The industry has got hundreds of millions of pounds’ worth of investment ready to go and it’s being blocked,” said Griffiths, adding that about 100 planning applications to build or modernise poultry farms were still pending.
Applications for new or expanded chicken sheds have faced local opposition due to concerns over welfare conditions, as well as noise, odour and water pollution.
“A lot of planning authorities are quite nervous about giving permission for these sheds,” said Richard King, partner and head of business research at the Andersons Centre, an agricultural consultancy.
Voluntary initiatives to reduce stocking densities — a measure of how crowded a shed is — from 38kg/sq m to 30kg/sq m have reduced production by almost 20 per cent, said Will Raw, chair of the Poultry Board at the National Farmers’ Union.
More than 95 per cent of all poultry meat produced in the UK is certified to Red Tractor standards, which require a maximum stocking density of 38kg/sq m for indoor meat chickens. Under EU law, stocking density can go up to 42kg/sq m.
The rise in imports has raised concerns around welfare standards. In January, the Countryside Alliance, a campaign group, revealed some Welsh councils were using poultry products from countries such as China and Thailand in school meals.
However, animal welfare groups have raised questions about the continued expansion in demand.
“The industry is very keen on relaxing planning rules. But I think we need to look at the picture as a whole. Is this really where we want to be going?” said Hannah Yates from the Humane League UK, an animal welfare charity.
More than 100 UK businesses, including M&S and Waitrose, have officially endorsed the Better Chicken Commitment (BCC), which requires suppliers to give birds more space and to phase out lower-welfare breeds by the end of this year.
However, eight restaurant groups, including the owners of KFC and Nando’s, withdrew from the BCC in February, citing insufficient supply and environmental concerns associated with slower-growing breeds, which require more space to farm.
“The only way you can square all these different competing things, imports, land, greenhouse gas emissions, is to produce and consume quite a lot less,” said Peter Stevenson, chief policy adviser at Compassion in World Farming.