How the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

South Africa's poorest of the poor are being ripped off by a scandalous system whereby they end up paying more for a chicken than the well-off pay in top supermarket chains. However, the system remains intact because it generates some R120-million annually for battery farmers around the country.

This is how the system works: 
At about 72 weeks of age, battery hens are considered 'spent'. These so-called 'end-of-lay hens' are sold live by battery farmers for between R10 and R12 a hen to 'cull' outlets.  Hawkers then buy the hens from the cull outlets for about R16 each and transport them into informal settlements where the hens are resold to the poor for up to R24 each.

Fully dressed, top of the range broiler chickens (table birds) of similar weight, are sold in top supermarket chains for, on average, about R18.  Thus, the poor, trapped by lack of transport, are forced to pay between R4 and R6 more than the middle and upper-income groups, to have a chicken on the table.

Mr Tambinkosi Plaatjie is a hawker who supplies end-of-lay chickens to Khayelitsha residents. His wife, Mrs Nonkanyiso Plaatjie, employs a team of women to kill the hens, defeet and degut them. The Plaatjie chicken outlet is situated on a street corner in Khayelitsha. Mr Plaatjie told Animal Voice he agreed that the system is a rip-off of the poor.  His own costs - transportation of the chickens from the cull outlets to Khayelitsa and paying the woman to kill and prepare them, are only just covered by the price of R22 - R24.

Note from Ed: Animal Voice has made several efforts over the last 10 years to stop the sale of live chickens, as well as live pigs, to informal settlements.  However , we have now been told confidentially, that the lack of cooperation from the farmers is because the system is simply too lucrative.  Animal Voice urgently calls on supermarket chains to help break this iniquitous system of exploitation.