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Fearnley-Whittingstall puts his money where his mouth is

9th June 2008, 10:00am

TV Chef and chicken-welfare campaigner Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall has been told to pay Tesco's £87,000 for submitting forms relating to his chicken campaign and has said he's so determined he will pay up.

The substantial amount is to print and post forms to 269,000 Tesco shareholders.

Hugh explained the situation further: "A few weeks ago I submitted a resolution to Tesco with the support of 102 shareholders representing some 3.7 million ordinary shares. The resolution challenges Tesco's claims about poultry welfare, and urges them to set new minimum welfare standards, including lower stocking densities and more environmental stimuli for the birds.

"Now Tesco have told me that they will only take our resolution to the AGM if I meet the cost of distributing the relevant papers to their shareholders. They are entitled to waive this fee, and we have requested that they do so, in the interest of shareholder democracy, but they have declined. In other words, the resolution is dead in the water unless I pay them £86,888 to print and post the papers out to all 269,000 Tesco shareholders.

"Tesco is the biggest retailer in the country and they can make the biggest difference to the lives of hundreds of millions of chickens. And so I'm determined, along with my fellow supporting shareholders and Chicken Out campaigners, to pursue this resolution. So I'm putting my money where my mouth is to take this issue all the way to the Tesco AGM on June 27th."

The River Cottage presenter is putting £30,000 of his own money into the pot with the aim of raising the remaining £56,888 by Wednesday 11^th June.

Hugh has put together a package of prizes to be auctioned online with bidding time drawing to a close midday Wednesday.

Click here to see the prizes on offer and learn more.

Related Articles:

01 Sep 2010 - Star chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall to present Organic Food Awards

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