KFC restaurants up and down the UK were protested last weekend over the company's use of Frankenchickens, with campaingers promising to return in the summer.

Demonstrators from animal protection charity The Humane League UK (THL UK) protested 11 KFCs in London, Leeds, Manchester, Bristol, Oxford, Penzance and Glasgow, with thousands of UK households being leafleted.

Claire Williams, campaigns manager at THL UK, said:“We held KFC accountable this weekend all across the country, from Cornwall to Scotland. This huge company promised to be a trailblazer for animal welfare when it pledged to stop using Frankenchickens in 2019. Now it needs to act.

Slaughter

KFC is sourcing millions of birds who grow so big, so quickly that their bodies can collapse in pain. Many struggle with burns, organ failure and deformities. This company claims to ‘believe in chicken’. When will this mean believing in their wellbeing?”

Protesters held placards with Frankenchickens coming out of KFC buckets and wore oversized masks of KFC executives Rob Swain, James Whitehorn and Matthew McCormick, who have the power to act on this issue 

These protests were an escalation after months of dialogue and demonstrations, asking the company to publish a timeline for getting rid of Frankenchickens.

Members of the public have sent thousands of emails to KFC voicing their anger at the company’s backtracking on the Better Chicken Commitment (BCC). The BCC is an animal welfare policy targeting the worst forms of suffering in chicken farming, including swapping fast-growing ‘Frankenchickens’ for healthier, slower-growing birds. 

Frankenchickens are chickens raised for meat who have been selectively bred to grow extremely large, extremely quickly, reaching slaughter weight in around 35 days. They suffer from numerous health problems as a result.

Committed

At the egg and poultry conference in November 2024 KFC said that while it will give its birds more space, it will not be switching to a slower-growing breed by the 2026 deadline.

Ruth Edge, head of sustainability for KFC UK and Ireland, said “In the timescales that are set out it is going to be unachievable for us.” She emphasised that KFC supported the BCC framework and moving to slower-growing breeds. 

“We’re not saying we’re never going to. “But we’re saying for 2026 and the way the market has developed, or lack of, we’re not going to be able to do it.”

Chickens are the most farmed animal in the UK, with 1.1 billion raised and killed for meat every year. As 90 per cent are Frankenchickens, subjected to intensive factory farming conditions, THL UK argues that this is an unrivalled crisis in animal cruelty.

THL UK fought a judicial review case against the British Government in October 2024 over the legality of Frankenchcikens. While they lost the case, the judgement may have paved the way to the private prosecution of chicken producers, something the campaign group is exploring.

Over 380 businesses in the UK and EU have committed to the BCC so far, including major food companies like Greggs, Waitrose, Burger King, and M&S.

This Author

Brendan Montague is editor of The Ecologist.