How much water is really in the chicken that you're buying?

Publish date: Tuesday, 15 Aug 2017, 4:44PM

A simple cooking experiment has confirmed claims that some supermarket chicken breasts will release around 20 per cent of their weight in water when cooked in a frying pan.

The Commerce Commission is looking into a complaint that water is being added to fresh chicken breasts in order to increase the sell weight.

Facebook user Andrew Simpson approached the Commission after he said he drained 500ml of liquid from 2kg of boneless chicken breast while cooking a chicken stir fry.

In order to verify his claims Herald Focus bought 1kg of the same boneless, skinless chicken breasts that Simpson used to highlight his concerns.

The chicken was cut into similar-sized pieces and then cooked in a large frying pan.

After five minutes of frying the chicken pieces were left partially submerged by the water that came out of the meat.

When drained it was found the chicken had released around 180ml of water, or just under 20 per cent of the total weight of the uncooked chicken.

For Simpson, the amount of fluid being released from his chicken is unacceptable.

"You're trying to make a chicken stir fry but end up with chicken soup because Countdown Supermarkets load up their Barnwell Chicken with so much extra water to increase the sell weight. C'mon guys - fair play," he posted on Facebook.

Countdown spokeswoman Kate Porter said the company had spoken to its chicken suppliers and confirmed there was no added liquid in the fresh chicken.

The company was talking to Simpson directly to get more details about the product and how it was cooked so it could investigate further, she said.

The Commerce Commission warned two chicken producers this year over packaging representations about the size of chickens.

The Commission considered that Inghams and Tegel were likely to have made misleading representations about chicken size by including stuffing and marinade in the weight of chickens.

Source: NZ Herald