Expensive free range chicken was tasteless!

Best fowl (Christmas turkey) I ever tasted came from a grotty sawdust-on-the-floor butchers in Tooting in the early 70’s, when I hadn’t realised you had to book M&S turkeys in advance.
It looked scruffy and scrawny but I put herby butter under the skin and a lemon as well as stuffing in both cavities and it was amazing.
But to look at when I brought it home? You can’t tell by appearances can you?

I get Creedy’s free range from my local farm shop. It’s the best tasting chicken I’ve ever had and worth every penny. I use every bit mind even down to making my own soup.

There is a supermarket hierarchy when it comes to the quality of meat. Tesco and Asda are the bottom as they prefer to pay the suppliers less and make more profit.

Sainsbury's, Aldi and Lidl have better product at reasonable prices.

Of course the M&S and Waitrose more expensive chickens are nicer but their budget meat is no better than that at Aldi.

I agree with M0nica chicken thighs are better imho than breasts, have tried chicken breasts and mostly find them dry and tough. But thighs are much moister and usually cheaper.

Just read this back.
It sounds garbled now.

Fast growing free range = cheaper and killed earlier. Little foraging.
Organic killed not before 80 days (ish) more muscle and a little fat. Foraging more = expensive
Similarly the slower growing "RSPCA Assured" free range birds.

​M&S and Waitrose signed up to the "Better Chicken Commitment."
For their premium and Free Range birds they use slower-growing breeds apparently - i want to say "Hubbard" types.
Anyway, the birds ghey choose are naturally more active and inquisitive so spend much more time actually roaming, scratching, and foraging outdoors.

I read thst lots of cheaper free range sellers use birds that grow very quickly and put on more breast than muscle so they don't forage a lot.

Also, because they aren't so fast growling the meat is developed. The cheaper chickens (even free range are killed at something between 30 and 50 days (ftom memory) whilst the others are 50 to 90 days old.

Organic chicken can't be slaughtered till 80 (or maybe it's even 80-something days).

I expect Tesco and Asda etc still sell tasty chickens in their "premium" ranges.

I expect it felt like a bargain after M&S etc Witzend!

This is just one of the cons the bigger supermarkets pull on us now. Yes, free range is better than battery on welfare grounds, but even then there is free range and free range. The word can cover a wide range of alternatives - then there is what they are fed, some are fed high nutrition foodstuffs that ensure they grow to slaughter weight as fast as possible, other higher welfare birds, still free range, have more space and grow more slowly.

I moved to organic chicken many years ago. I buy mainly chicken thighs, preferably boned. They are just as tasty and just as good as the expensive breast fillets.