Jon Richardson, Sara Pascoe and Kerry Godliman have starred in the latest campaign video from Project Slingshot as it takes aim at ‘Frankenchicken’ breeds.
The sketch, directed by Simon Amstell, is the latest stage in Project Slingshot’s £3m ‘Don’t Buy It’ campaign.
‘The Chicken Quiz’, hosted by Last One Laughing star Sam Campbell, sees Richardson, Pascoe and Godliman take part in a quiz focusing on the conditions of chickens in British factory farms.
The comedians reveal that 90% of UK chickens are bread to grow so fast they can barely stand and that if a human baby grew at the same rate as one of these chickens it would be as heavy as two gorillas by eight weeks old.
Project Slingshot said the campaign highlighted the realities of intensive chicken farming, including birds spending much of their lives sitting in their own waste.
The video also criticises claims made on chicken packaging, with Pascoe saying “you can’t lie on a label” before being corrected by Campbell, who says “yes, you can. People lie on labels”.
Accompanying the video, a series of adverts has been placed across the London Underground network for six weeks, featuring Campbell, Richardson, Pascoe, Godliman and Chris Packham.
Project Slingshot co-founder Naomi Hallum said: “Factory farming has broken the chicken. In the UK, almost 90% of the 1.1 billion chickens bred for meat annually are the overbred, fast-growing ‘Frankenchickens’, who are prone to lameness, broken bones, and heart attacks.
“They spend so long sitting in their own waste, they suffer painful skin burns that you can still see on chicken meat in the supermarket. Despite this, the industry still expects us to believe that animal welfare is its top priority. Well, we just don’t buy it.”
The video is part of a wider campaign from Project Slingshot to end factory farming by 2040 which included a major London Underground campaign that challenged the pig industry’s claims that CO2 pig gassing qualifies as “humane slaughter”.
It plans to increase investment into its campaign to £15m next year which is says is to place “pressure on the food industry to be honest about the practices and outcomes of factory farming and on the government to tackle this damaging food system”.
The campaign is also supported by Joanna Lumley, who called for Frankenchickens to be banned “because we’re better than this”.
Last month, campaign group Anima called out Pret a Manger for selling frankenchickens.
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