Hell's Kitchen Marco slams TV chefs

Marco Pierre White has slammed crusades by celebrity chefs to improve animal welfare as 'highly cynical' publicity stunts and 'insensitive' to low-income families.

"I think that all these crusades are purely about publicity," Marco told the London magazine ShortList.

"There are a lot of people in this country earning just £20,000 a year, and they have a family to feed and a roof to put over their heads... And certain people are banging on about battery chickens. I think it's quite insensitive of them."

The Hell's Kitchen star added: "I just think certain celebrities, whether they're chefs or not, who are questioning the morality of chicken should be questioning every aspect of farming rather than picking and choosing.

"It's a cheap jibe designed to get column inches, which I think is highly cynical.”

Marco, who trained Gordon Ramsay and Heston Blumenthal, denied rumours of a feud with the star of Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares.

"There is no rivalry. Not from my side anyway. To think like that you'd have to be ruled and motivated by your insecurities… Cooking isn't a competition; it's an extension of yourself. We're very different creatures, he and I."

The Michelin-starred chef also questioned the aims of programmes such as Jamie's Fowl Dinners, which pushed supermarkets to only stock free-range chicken.

"Can you imagine what it would mean to make every chicken in the country free-range? Do these people not do their sums?

"Tesco must flog 50 million chickens a week. To make them all free range we'd be an island full of chickens. The United Kingdom of Chickens. I mean, it's lunacy."