Tesco has withdrawn Finest free range chickens after supplier Moy Park was caught using the Freedom Food brand without licence. Spot checks at Tesco stores by RSPCA subsidiary Freedom Food revealed the misuse, caused by what Moy Park is calling an admin error. A spokesman for Moy Park said: "This was a mistake. We had Freedom Food certification until the late 1990s, but we dropped it because we do not believe consumers buy into it. "The chickens we supplied to Tesco were free range." But Freedom Food said: "We are not talking about the welfare standards of the chickens. Moy Park was using a label it was not supposed to use. "Its licence ran out in 1999, it has now asked us to re-licence their products." Moy Park started using the Freedom Foods label on Tesco Finest chickens in July 2001, and supplied 3,600 birds a week. It has now undertaken not to label any chicken as Freedom Food in future, unless under licence. A Tesco spokesman said: "We signed off the packaging in good faith, and we are now looking at our checking procedures. "We are satisfied Moy Park made a mistake, caused by a breakdown in internal communications." {{NEWS }}

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