Consumers can now purchase a whole chicken from supermarkets such as Asda and Somerfield for a mere £2 – but what's all the fuss about?

The reason some supermarkets are now able to charge such minimal prices for their chickens is because they are battery chickens – birds which are force-fed specifically for the purpose of fattening them up and then slaughtering them in minimal time.

The less time a farmer has to spend rearing a chicken, the less money it costs. In turn, the cheaper the price to the consumer.

This form of chicken 'production' is nothing new – it has been used for years.

However, in a country which is increasingly becoming concerned with the quality of life that animals lead, many consumers are turning to chickens which have been reared organically.

In taste tests free-range chickens commonly perform better than caged birds, which is usually put down to the greater variety of their diet and the extra exercise they get.

Celebrity chefs such as Jamie Oliver, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Gordon Ramsay have all voiced their preference for free range birds, and have called for a stop to battery hens.

Advance publicity of a special 'food season' revealed that Jamie Oliver would put people off eating battery chickens by showing how they were produced. Channel 4 said his series 'Jamie's Fowl Dinners' would show 'the hideous realities of industrial chicken production'.

The Channel 4 head of factual entertainment, Andrew Mackenzie, said: "Jamie's simple message in an overt way is if you knew the process, how your eggs are produced and what you eat, you would probably buy free-range, organic chickens."

According to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), the term 'Free range' on an egg or poultry meat product should adhere to the criteria that a chicken's age at slaughter should be a minimum of 56 days. Chickens should also be stocked in houses where there are not more than 13 birds or 27.5 kg liveweight per square metre.

These criteria highlight the fact that even free range chickens do not necessarily have a 'good' quality of life.

While consumers have every right to pay more for their organic, free-range chickens which taste better, do they also have the right to slate those consumers who may not want to spend as much on their food?

Perhaps we are fussing over nothing - not everyone is concerned with taste and the quality of a bird's life. Millions of people in the world are literally starving: surely they wouldn't care whether a chicken was free range or not.

The article Battery hen bargains originally appeared on 999 Today