London’s chicken shops offer meals for £1 but it’s affecting children’s health – MyLondon

‘Chicken and chips for a pound please’ is definitely a common phrase heard after school throughout London’s 32 boroughs.

There are now 8,000 fast-food outlets in the capital, one for every 1,000 Londoners, and their number is growing by around 10 per cent every year. Cheap chicken is huge part of this growing expansion, with the fried-chicken market alone being worth between £15 and £20bn a year. And schoolchildren have a massive part to play in this.

Those who went to school in London will know that fried chicken shops were the place to hang out after school and grab a snack at lunch time. The question is, how are chicken takeaways able to offer chips and poultry for such a low price?

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The easy answer is a huge influx of schoolkids, evening shift workers and people who have been to pubs and bars and need a snack. The shops also typically buy low quality chicken and all their other items in bulk. The owners won’t be rich, but they can make a fair bit of money and often own more than one shop.

For example, the wholesale supplier Brakes, offers chicken drumsticks for just 40p each. It also offers chicken wings for £2.48 for a kg. With an average wing weighing 102 grams it would mean each wing cost the shop only around 25p. No wonder the meal is so cheap.

Child obesity is on the rise and experts have said it needs a change in culture to stop children growing up unhealthy
(Image: getty)

Although schoolchildren’s pockets might be benefiting from the cost, their health isn’t. Childhood obesity levels have tripled in the past 15 years, with more than one in three children aged between 11 and 15 now overweight or obese.

And fatty snacks like chicken and chips are impacting poorer areas of the capital the most. There is a clear correlation between wealth in the area and the amount of fast food takeaways the area has. Having such cheap takeaways in poor areas entices the kids to eat poorly.

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Source: https://www.mylondon.news/lifestyle/food-drink/how-londons-chicken-shops-can-22897994