KFC, Burger King, and 16 Others Drop the Bogus ‘Better Chicken Commitment’

Eighteen major food brands—including KFC and Burger King—are backing away from the “Better Chicken Commitment” and moving toward yet another industry-backed labeling scheme. It’s the latest attempt to keep consumers feeling comfortable while billions of chickens continue to suffer out of the public eye.

The “Better Chicken Commitment” was never a win for animals in the first place.

What Is the Better Chicken Commitment?

The “Better Chicken Commitment” is a humane-washing ploy that lures kind consumers into buying chicken flesh, claiming it is “humanely” produced, even though the chickens suffer their entire lives and travel in all weather extremes to a frightening death.

Chickens must reach “slaughter weight” quickly to remain profitable to the chicken industry. The meat industry forced decades of genetic modifications onto chickens, turning the once energetic and curious birds into beings bred to do nothing but suffer.

“Better Chicken Commitment” birds are still:

• factory-farmed in intolerably crowded conditions that cause great distress.
• bred to grow so quickly, their bodies often can’t support their weight
• Suffering from serious ailments that afflict “broiler” chickens, like breast blisters, hock burns, footpad dermatitis, and muscular myopathies.
• forced to gain weight by the farming industry, which makes them morbidly obese, unhealthy birds who can barely walk more than a few steps at a time and often collapse.
• in pain their entire lives.
• violently killed when they are 6-7 weeks old.

The label offers minor tweaks to an inherently cruel system, while giving companies a way to market chicken flesh as “better.”

“The chronic disease and deformities faced by virtually all chickens [is] because they have been genetically modified to grow fatter, faster than ever before.” – Andrew deCoriolis, Farm Forward Executive Director

The ‘Better Chicken Commitment’ Was a Failure From the Start—and Now Big Brands Are Doubling Down on Cruelty

If the Better Chicken Commitment doesn’t actually help birds, what does it even do? Basically nothing: Through the program, brands like Nando’s, KFC, Wagamama, and Burger King agreed to buy the flesh of slightly slower-growing birds. But now, these companies—along with 14 others—have abandoned even that meaningless pledge.

Even worse, these companies are forming a “Sustainable Chicken Forum” led by a restaurant-industry lobby group. As companies cycle through one bogus label after another, the birds killed for their flesh are just as miserable as ever.

The industry is replacing one weak, feel-good label with another without addressing the suffering built into farming chickens for “food.”

Factory-Farmed Chickens Are Suffering at GAP-Certified Farms  

No matter what the packaging says, “humane,” “Animal Welfare Certified,” “organic,” or any other label, chickens suffer the same.

Over 8 billion chickens are killed for their flesh in the U.S. each year. Almost all of these chickens, called “broilers” by the speciesist chicken industry, spend their entire lives confined in filthy sheds with tens of thousands of other birds, even when their flesh is labeled “Animal Welfare Certified” or “organic,” in grocery stores like Whole Foods. The intense crowding and confinement by the meat, egg, and dairy industries often lead to outbreaks of disease, such as bird flu. When the birds are only 6 or 7 weeks old, workers cram them into overcrowded crates and truck them to slaughter.

At the slaughterhouse, chickens are terrified as workers shackle them upside down, dunk them in an electrified water bath meant to stun them, and then plunge them into a scalding hot water bath meant to remove their feathers while many are still conscious, and slit their throats.

Chickens feel pain, grief, love, joy, anxiety, and a range of other emotions, just like humans. When given the chance, they are social and like to spend their days together, scratching for food, taking dust baths, roosting in trees, and lying in the sun. Chickens are arguably the most abused animals on the planet—and the ones who end up on your plate don’t get to enjoy anything that’s natural or important to them.

Labels don’t change these facts. They just make them easier to ignore.

Want to Actually Help Chickens?

There’s a simple way to opt out of the entire cruel industry: Don’t eat chickens or their eggs. The only “better chicken” is one who gets to keep her wings! Going vegan spares animals, reduces your environmental footprint, and helps dismantle the cruel meat, egg, and dairy industries. If you’re ready to make the switch, PETA can help you get started.