Edit: I would recommend checking out the original article just for the sake of seeing the pictures of what hock burn looks like on packaged chicken you would buy from the supermarket.
My TL;DR:
"Hock burn" is caused by ammonia from excrement. A sign of poorer welfare on farms, it can be seen on a third of birds in some supermarkets.
Hock burn is often associated with a high-stocking density of birds and is a result of prolonged contact to moist, dirty litter. It shows up on packaged and prepared meat as brown ulcers on the back of the leg.
Chicken with hock burn markings are still safe to eat. But the amount of hock burn within a poultry flock is an industry-accepted indicator of wider welfare standards on farms.
Red Tractor, the UK's biggest farm and food assurance scheme, sets a target rate for hock burn of no more than 15% of a flock.
Hock burn statistics from various supermarkets:
The BBC requested animal welfare data from 10 leading UK food sellers: Tesco, Sainsbury's, Asda, Morrisons, Aldi, Co-op, Lidl, Waitrose, Iceland and Ocado.
Five of the companies - Asda, Morrisons, Lidl, Iceland and Ocado - failed to provide specific figures.
- Co-op, which is supplied with an estimated 30 million chickens a year, recorded hock burn in 36.7% of its poultry.
- Aldi's most recent annual figures revealed it had found hock burn in 33.5% of its chickens.
- Company animal welfare reports reveal Tesco recorded a 26.3% rate in its chickens in 2022/23.
- Sainsbury's found hock burn in one in five (25%) of its chickens.
- Waitrose had the lowest recorded annual figure of 2.7%.
- Lidl was one of the stores that did not provide data to the BBC. Volunteers found 74% of the chickens they checked had hock burn.
This is the thing that horrifies me the most about this story. Adults, schools, and parents are setting an abominable example to these children.
I can only imagine the confusion and shame a child must experience when being told to hide their insulin pumps, their wheelchairs, their hearing aids, etc. And I'm frightened to think of the pupils who feel empowered to "other" their classmates because they are being "othered" by the adults. It's a clear example of how we teach children bigotry.
An experience from my childhood which still sticks with me to this day is from when attending an ultra-orthodox church. I was maybe 5 years old and tried to follow my dad into a restricted area and being stopped by the priest, being told "sorry, only boys are allowed back here".
As a child I was taught that adults are always right, and to listen to them. This may very well be my earliest memory of being taught sexism, which only got reinforced throughout my life due to trusting the adults at this church and through trusting my very religious right-wing father. Even as a kid I recognised that what I was witnessing was unfair, but I did not have the power, the understanding, nor the will to challenge this unfairness because the adults must know what they're doing... right?