Will you be having a 'welfare turkey' this Christmas?

One of the interesting things about the credit crunch is not the ways it changes people's behaviour, but the ways it doesn't. Let's look back to a year ago, when we were all rolling in money. If you can remember that far back, you'll recall that it was considered far more 'normal' to buy expensive coffee on the way in to work than it is now - and that's no real surprise. Expensive coffee is something we can all live without.

But there are some things that haven't changed: expenses that we still justify, whether we can really 'afford' them or not. And according to a source of mine at a major UK supermarket chain, the one are that customers are still prepared to shell out is 'welfare food'; free range meat, poultry and dairy products in particular.

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While sales of 'budget' food overall is on the up, this effect has not been seen across the board and, I'm happy to say, we have not seen a return to the £2 chicken. Instead, customers are insisting on free range, and Supermarkets are responding with some good deals. Morrisons, for example, is selling large free range turkeys for just £11.99, but local butchers will also generally offer good prices.

So, if you're not doing as I am and going down the veggie route (it's the trimmings that make a Christmas dinner after all, right?) will you be buying a free range bird this year? And have you found one that's cheaper than Morrisons?

All this, I have to say, is extremely heartening, and if global economic chaos means less inethically-produced coffee and more free range poultry, then bring it on!

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