Whole Foods Shifts to Slower-Growing Chickens

Whole Foods Market Inc. is looking to slow-grow its chickens.

The natural and organic foods retailer said it will replace the industry-standard chickens bred to rapidly pack on pounds with slower-growing varieties that Whole Foods believes will enjoy better lives and yield better-tasting meat.

The move, which Whole Foods expects to complete by 2024, will involve repopulating chicken farms that supply its stores with breeds like the Red Ranger and Naked Neck, which generally grow to marketable size about 23% more slowly than conventional varieties favored by top meatpackers.

"It's better for the animal but also for the quality of the product," Theo Weening, global meat buyer for Whole Foods, said Thursday. He said the chain may promote the pokier poultry breeds in store aisles and packaging.

The retailer's embrace of slower-growing chickens broadens the debate over methods farmers and meat companies use to raise the billions of animals that supply meatpackers, retailers and restaurants, which have come under pressure from consumer groups and public health officials.

Restaurants including McDonald's Corp. and Subway have outlined plans to scale back antibiotics fed to animals that provide meat to the chains, while General Mills Inc. and Nestlé SA have pledged to buy more cage-free eggs.

Meatpackers Cargill Inc. and Smithfield Foods Inc. have moved to improve housing for pregnant pigs.

Geneticists at chicken-breeding divisions of Tyson Foods Inc., Groupe Grimaud and Aviagen Inc. for decades have focused on breeding more-efficient chickens that gain weight more quickly while consuming less feed and water, helping make each bird more profitable.

Today, farmers can raise a 5.3-pound chicken in 35 days using 8 pounds of feed, compared with 30 years ago, when it took 7 pounds of feed to raise a 3-pound bird over the same span of time.

While meat producers tout fast-growing chickens as more sustainable, animal-rights groups argue that the intensive genetic selection has created top-heavy chickens with overlarge breasts that have trouble walking and are prone to heart problems.

Though breeders have worked to produce hardier birds, groups like the Global Animal Partnership say the huge chickens eventually can't do things that come naturally to chickens, like perch and scamper. The group said Thursday it will make slower-growing chicken breeds the requirement for companies like Whole Foods that participate in its ratings system for animal-raising standards.

Anne Malleau, the Global Animal Partnership's executive director, said chickens in the program are likely to grow to market weight in 56 to 62 days, versus an average 42 days for similarly sized, faster-growing birds.

Slower-growing varieties already represent about 5% to 10% of Whole Foods' overall chicken supply, which the company sells in its delis and meat cases and processes into products like stock for soup, chicken salad and pet food. Mr. Weening said that any cost increase arising from the shift would be "minimal."

Write to Jacob Bunge at [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

March 17, 2016 15:45 ET (19:45 GMT)

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