Low Food Lab: using the whole chicken
Our Low Food Lab: Grains was a hit, so we’re on to the next lab: Low Food Lab Chicken – Oranjehoen. The challenge for this lab’s sectoral experts is to find culinary applications for chicken parts not commonly used, i.e., tougher to valorize.
A growing number of farmers are looking for alternatives to mass production. And they are driven by a desire to valorize their entire product and sell at a price that accurately reflects the quality and taste. Johan Leenders, chicken and crop farmer from Swifterbant, feels the same way. Especially because at least 60% of his chicken is downgraded.
Poultry excellence
Leenders’ 100% circular farm produces the Oranjehoen, a premium chicken breed that even outclasses the three-star “Beter Leven” [Higher Welfare] label. He feeds his chickens with leftover vegetable cuttings from his farmland mixed with herbs from a neighboring herb farm. That special feed gives his chickens their unique orange coloring and a delicate flavor.
He mainly sells his poultry to meal kit delivery service HelloFresh, which only uses the breast, thighs, and drumsticks – only amounting to 40% of the chicken. The remaining 60% is currently considered low-grade chicken and is largely exported to Africa or winds up as animal feed.
The Lab’s objective
Since the demand for Oranjehoen is growing, Flevo Campus is collaborating with several partners and participants to explore how the remaining 60% of the chicken could be used. Because here’s the rub... If Leenders were to produce far more chickens, he’d also be producing a far bigger waste stream. That would harm his farm and the entire chain. So, he posed the following research question to Low Food:
How can we valorize the whole chicken throughout the chain with culinary applications from the Oranjehoen’s residual streams?
This Chicken Lab monitored the Oranjehoen’s farm production and traced its journey throughout the entire short chain from the slaughterhouse and poultry processor to the consumer market. The objective is to identify new applications for today’s low-grade chicken parts. With this in mind, a team of specialists (scroll down to meet the team) will spend the next two months experimenting with the neck, feet, skin, and other chicken parts that are rarely or never eaten in the Netherlands.
What is Low Food Labs’ superpower?
Low Food Labs is an objective research institute, i.e., we never know the Lab’s outcome in advance.
We collaborate with a huge network of food professionals.
Flevoland food issues remain our priority.
Lab results are transparent and open source: availability to all benefits everyone.
We aren’t driven by commercial profit.
Our culinary perspective creates innovative research.
The team
Jerrey Gontscharoff (chef, Pension Homeland)
Sharon de Miranda (chef, Food Forum)
Billie van Katwijk (conceptual productdesigner)
Isaac van Elden (broth expert)
Ivana Mik (fermentation expert)
The Low Food Labs are a collaboration between Low Food and Flevo Campus. This article is written by Monique den Ouden and was previously published on the website of Flevo Campus.
