Free-range, organic and ‘hormone-free’: what do Australian supermarket chicken labels mean?

Australians consume more chicken than any other meat but packaging can be confusing. Here experts break down the different chook categories

From a bachelor’s handbag to the shining star of a pub feed, chicken has captured the hearts and stomachs of Australians nationwide. It is by far the country’s most popular meat, with Australians consuming almost 55kg of chicken a year, almost double the amount of pork, the second-most consumed meat.

Why? For one, chicken is cheap. Prices have remained stable compared with beef and lamb. Indexed to retail prices in 2010, the price of chicken has only increased by 20%, while beef has increased by nearly 80% and lamb by nearly 40%.

Prof Stephen Walkden-Brown, the interim director of Poultry Hub Australia, a research institute associated with the University of New England, says chicken meat is consistently good quality. “You don’t get bunged batches of chicken meat that’s very tough or stringy,” he says. This is due to the uniformity in the production system and the youth of the animals, which makes them more tender.

But that uniformity isn’t so obvious when you’re in the supermarket faced with an array of chicken labels and certification schemes that all claim different things such as being organic, premium free range or free of growth promoters.

The main differences between these schemes are driven by consumer demands when it comes to chicken welfare, Walkden-Brown says. “It’s a personal preference about how you think chickens should be raised.”

There is no evidence to suggest that different production methods impact the taste of chicken meat, according to José Quinteros, a lecturer in poultry health at the University of Sydney.

April Broadbent, a campaigner for Better Chicken Australia, says some labels including “Australian chicken”, “hormone-free” or “no added hormones” suggest a problem that doesn’t exist. “It’s illegal to import fresh chicken meat into Australia … Slapping ‘grown in Australia’ on fresh chicken in the supermarket is just marketing, because it’s all grown and produced in Australia,” she says.

Walkden-Brown says hormones were never widely used in Australia and haven’t been used at all in Australian chicken meat for more than 60 years.

The type of feed given to chickens only results in “slight differences” in taste, he adds. Typical labels referring to diet include “corn-fed” and “pasture-raised”. But “chickens can’t handle that much grass,” he says, adding that the feed also changes the colour of chicken fat and meat. The oil contained in corn creates a yellowish hue.

Different certifications come at a cost passed on to the consumer, he says, adding that the least to most expensive chicken meat is typically: RSPCA-certified, free-range then organic.

RSPCA-certified

What to look for on the packaging: RSPCA-certified farming

The majority of commercial chicken meat is RSPCA-certified, with about 90% of Australian chicken meat producers being accredited. These standards are higher than those set by the Australian animal welfare standards and guidelines for poultry finalised in 2022 and the model code of practice for the welfare of animals published in 2002.

While all states and territories have endorsed the Australian animal welfare standards and guidelines for poultry, only Western Australia and Victoria (phasing in in mid-2026) have legislated those practices. The remaining states and territories still adhere to the older code of practice.

RSPCA certification also includes minimum requirements for litter depth and light and dark periods, which are only loosely covered in the 2002 guidelines. According to Melina Tensen, a senior scientific officer at RSPCA Australia, litter is important as it gives chickens a comfortable place to rest and encourages them to perform normal behaviours such as foraging and scratching. Tensen adds that exposure to light and darkness is also important for birds’ circadian rhythms. Some farms expose chickens to longer periods of light to encourage them to keep eating.

Compared with other countries, chicken produced in Australia is reared under relatively high standards, Walkden-Brown says. “Once you throw the RSPCA standards in, you can be pretty confident, if you’re buying commercial chicken meat in Australia, that it’s a quality product produced ethically,” he says. Chickens raised indoors or outdoors can be RSPCA-certified.

Free range

What to look for on the packaging: Australian Certified Organic, Free Range Egg & Poultry Australia standards, RSPCA-certified and free range

Free range is a voluntary certification, and the second most common for chicken in Australia. This label means that chickens have access to the outdoors – they are otherwise raised in barns or sheds.

Unlike free-range chicken eggs, there is no legally binding definition of free-range chicken meat, Broadbent says.

For chicken eggs to be certified as free range, a maximum of 10,000 hens for every hectare can be kept outside. There is no such maximum stocking density free-range chicken meat needs to abide by.

As a result, Broadbent says it’s important to look for third-party free-range certification labels, which have a more comprehensive definition of free range.

RSPCA-Certified free range, Australian Certified Organic and Free Range Egg & Poultry Australia are the only bodies that provide certification for free-range chicken.

Walkden-Brown says there are many welfare issues associated with free-range systems, particularly when it comes to the spread of disease through interactions with wild birds. He adds that chickens rarely go outside when given the choice and are “like us” – they enjoy being in buildings where they are warm and protected by the elements. “A small proportion of the birds do go out but at least they have the choice to go outside.”

Organic

What to look for on the packaging: Australian Certified Organic

In Australia, companies do not need to be certified to claim that their products are organic.

Consumers seeking organic chicken should look for an Australian Certified Organic sticker, administered by the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. In addition to having a stricter maximum stocking density number, this certification also has specific requirements for the types of feed animals can be given. It must be chemical- and fertiliser-free, with non-genetically modified seeds.

The higher price of organic chicken is in part because “roughly 70% of the cost of raising chickens is the feed and they eat a lot”, Walkden-Brown says.

The use of antibiotics is not permitted unless there is an otherwise-unmanageable disease outbreak.

Comparing certifications

Stocking density is a universal metric used to calculate the total bird weight for every square metre. It’s used to help provide a more accurate picture of the birds’ weight relative to the space they’re given, as in the early weeks of their lifespan “they’re sort of doubling in size”, Walkden-Brown say.

Both Walkden-Brown and Broadbent say meat chickens don’t engage with free-range environments in the same way chickens that produce eggs do. “It’s less relevant to have, and there’s been less need to have really specific requirements around those outdoor spaces,” Broadbent says.

As a result, she says, there is a lot of variation in metrics for free-range meat chicken across the different certifications. For the units used by Free Range Egg & Poultry Australia and RSPCA-certified, Walkden-Brown says this is to ensure chickens “truly” have a space to go outside, rather than just having a small area that happens to be outside.

The number of birds per hectare – as typically used for egg-producing chickens – is generally lower when compared with kilograms per square metre, where Walkden-Brown believes the former metric is applied to meat chickens that have fully matured. He roughly calculates that in the organic certification, their free-range access equates to 1kg per square metre.