Leopold Center - Successful chicken collective may offer hope to U.S. growers

The famous Moulin Rouge was the first 1890s French cabaret with something entertaining for everyone. Label Rouge, founded in the 1960s, was the first showcase for French farmers who continued to raise traditional, flavorful poultry. American poultry producers now want to know if the tactics used by the highly successful Label Rouge brand can perform as well on their farms.

Anne Fanatico and Holly Born, two Arkansas-based specialists at the National Center for Appropriate Technology (NCAT), recently concluded a study of how Label Rouge has made its system work for farmers and consumers. The innovative program has captured 30 percent of public poultry sales in France, while charging prices twice those of conventionally raised poultry.

Fanatico and Born visited Ames in late July to share their insights at a campus seminar and at several smaller meetings. Their visit was arranged by the Leopold Center’s Marketing and Food Systems Initiative and the value chain project at ISU funded by the Kellogg Foundation. Initiative leader Rich Pirog says, “We brought Holly and Anne here because we thought the Label Rouge value chain was a model worth studying. Why? Because it allows farmers to have influence across the chain, not just at the production level.”

They explained that Label Rouge concentrates on high-quality products, with poultry as its flagship offering. The program emphasizes attributes such as taste and food safety, and free-range production practices. The main reason touted for the superior taste of Label Rouge products is the use of slow-growing birds instead of the fast-growing birds used in the conventional industry.

Fanatico points out that because Label Rouge has been so profitable in its use of heirloom breeds, producers here might find it equally lucrative to look at genuine American breeds with distinctive meat qualities. She sees opportunities for smaller farmers to experiment with some of the unique breeds, in contrast with the one variety of chicken currently raised in the United States. The land and labor requirements for specialty breeds also may be better suited to small farm operations.

Born noted that Label Rouge was farmer-initiated and remains farmer-controlled. The company limits how many birds can be raised, types and sizes of buildings used, and range and feed that must be available to the birds. Label Rouge birds are usually produced on diversified farms with other livestock and grain production. Some branded products are tied to regions and possess their own distinct images. (For instance, Landes poultry is raised under specific conditions in the pine forests along the Atlantic coast.)

Fanatico has been poultry program specialist at NCAT for ten years. While in France, she looked at whether the best Label Rouge features could be adapted to U.S. agriculture, especially the use of specialty broilers for outdoor production. Born is an economics and marketing specialist at NCAT. Her research on pasture-based poultry production focused on the unique organizational and marketing features of the Label Rouge system. Both women have provided information to farmers, educators and other agricultural professionals through NCAT’s Appropriate Technology Transfer for Rural Areas (ATTRA) program, a national information service on sustainable farming.