SHOPPERS have been left shocked after a customer spotted a chicken on sale for a whopping £22.51.
Dilek Sule Walley was shocked after stumbling across the organic Free Range British Whole Chicken last week.
Images show the 1.916kg piece of meat, which serves six, along with its eye-watering price tag that works out at £11.75 per kg – a whopping £17.90 more than Tesco’s version.
Posting on social media on Saturday, Dilek wrote: “Organic chicken is back but one needs a second mortgage to buy one.”
The post comes at a time when many are struggling to afford food as a result of the cost-of-living crisis.
More than 400 people left comments on the post – with most being equally as shocked at the steep price.
Tony West-Padgett said: “…also it costs £10 to roast it!”
Julia Charnock said: “HOW MUCH?!? Time to stuff a mushroom.”
Carli Josiah-Browne said: “Omg I was going to do this instead of Turkey for Christmas – might need to remortgage the chateau.”
Jeremy Foot said: “It’s a stupid price, don’t give into them.”
Ali Ben-Mussa said: “WTF?!”
Robert Stanyon Carr said: “The irony is that a bird will never have free range in its life because of avian flu.
“But due to loopholes in regulations farmers only lose free range status if the bird housed for more than 12 weeks.
“Most birds are culled at around 8 to 12 weeks so they can still be labelled free range – it’s a massive con.”
However, some thought the Waitrose price fits the bill.
Donna Higham said: “One can’t put a price on a clear conscience.”
Wendy Attridge said: “It’s better to have good meat, humanely reared, less often, than intensively farmed cheaper stuff.”
Susue Reynolds said:”NOBODY that shops in Waitrose would think that let alone say it.
“Return to Lidls from whence you came…”
John Richardson said: “Initially, and back in the days of getting rid of the battery farms, it was confirmed that it would cost a farmer £1 more per chicken to convert to free range.
“Therefore the general public were expecting their chickens on the shelf would be £1 more for free range (there was no change in the exchange process to retail).
“However, supermarkets saw the opportunity to profit from people’s conscience over the purchasing of chicken that had a better life (and this a better quality of meat and taste). They instead added an extra £5 to the free range price.
“I’m guessing the cost of feed allows yet a further hike as again, the supermarkets will look to maintain profits.”
UK statistics show that the lowest-priced items in the UK have now increased in cost by around 16-17% between September 2021 and September 2022.
Vegetable oil was shown to have the largest increase in price, with an average of 46% increase between April-September 2022.
