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Sutton Hoo chicken

  • What:

    Slow-grown, free-range birds

  • Why:

    For brilliant-tasting chicken that's had a wonderful life

  • Where:

    Suffolk
  • Buy now :

SUTTON HOO CHICKEN: WHAT IS IT?

Sutton Hoo came about because owner Belinda and her late husband, Charles, could no longer find great-tasting chicken in the UK.

When they were visiting family in South Africa, the difference in quality of the chicken they ate was so stark they decided they were going to recreate the chicken they remembered from their childhood right here in the UK.

The answer was surprisingly simple – go back to old-fashioned methods of farming; rear genuinely free-range chicken, allowing the birds to roam free, forage and grow at their own pace rather than rear them en-masse in battery-farmed sheds and inject them with antibiotics and hormones.

This shift in farming wasn’t hard. What did actually prove difficult was getting people to understand the price difference when farming with these methods – but it’s worth it, because if you try a succulent Sutton Hoo chicken, we bet you won’t buy from the supermarket again. And it’s even more worth it when you realise you can get more bang for your buck (or is that cluck?), with one chicken providing a Sunday roast, curry or stew with the leftovers, and then soup or stock with the carcass.

SUTTON HOO CHICKEN: HOW SUSTAINABLE IS IT?

While using these farming methods is rewarding, it’s still hard work. A lot going into making birds that taste this good, and it all starts, way, way before it reaches your kitchen.

On the farm, the chickens have 24/7 access to mobile houses that have no artificial lighting – so they can rise with the sun and sleep when it gets dark – and are naturally ventilated. During the day the sides are completely opened up so all chickens have access to 40 acres of Suffolk fields to graze and forage. Sounds pretty enviable to us city folk.

Chickens notoriously dig up fields so the sheds are moved when new chickens arrive to make sure they have fresh pasture. Their diet is supplemented with grains and they are not given antibiotics (unless necessary for their health reasons) or hormones.

The breed of chicken is also important. A Hubbard chicken grows much slower so they are reared for an average of 10 weeks. This is 25% longer than standard free-range chickens and 70% longer than standard indoor chickens.

SUTTON HOO CHICKEN: HOW DO I BUY IT?

Sutton Hoo chicken is available to order from The Wild Meat Company, or you can find a local stockist here.

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