Introduction
Chef Tom Colicchio, the award-winning chef and restaurateur, has recently launched a new eco-friendly poultry company. The company, called Heritage Poultry, is dedicated to producing high-quality, humanely-raised poultry that is free of antibiotics and hormones. The company is committed to sustainability and animal welfare, and is working to create a more sustainable food system. Heritage Poultry is a great example of how chefs and restaurateurs can use their influence to create positive change in the food industry.
Chef Tom Colicchio Launches New Eco-Friendly Poultry Company
Celebrity chef Tom Colicchio has announced the launch of his new eco-friendly poultry company, Tom Colicchio’s Poultry. The company will focus on providing high-quality, sustainably-raised poultry to restaurants and consumers.
Colicchio, who is best known for his appearances on the Bravo television series Top Chef, has long been an advocate for sustainable food production. He has been vocal about the need for more sustainable farming practices, and his new venture is a direct response to that.
The company will focus on raising chickens in a humane and sustainable way. The chickens will be raised in open-air barns, and will be fed a vegetarian diet. The company will also use renewable energy sources to power its operations.
Colicchio is also partnering with a number of organizations to ensure that the company’s poultry is raised in a way that is both humane and environmentally friendly. The company will be working with the Humane Society of the United States, the Global Animal Partnership, and the American Humane Association to ensure that its chickens are raised in a way that meets the highest standards of animal welfare.
Colicchio’s new venture is a welcome addition to the sustainable food movement. His commitment to providing high-quality, sustainably-raised poultry is a great example of how businesses can make a positive impact on the environment.
If you’re looking for an easy way to fight food waste and help solve climate change, then celebrity chef Tom Colicchio has a suggestion: buy some chicken—specifically, Do Good Chicken. “It is my preferred chicken,” Colicchio said during a press event introducing the new poultry products on Tuesday at his restaurant Vallata in New York City.
The pioneering poultry brand harvests chickens raised on a diet of what the company calls “surplus grocery food.” That is, food waste: unwanted supermarket proteins and produce that usually wind up in a landfill. The new company claims that each of its chickens saves four pounds of otherwise wasted food and reduces three pounds of greenhouse gasses as a result.
“If you can help solve climate change, and not really do anything different but order chicken, then why not?” Colicchio said. “It’s that easy.” During the event, the famous chef served up Nashville-style hot chicken sandwiches, chicken wings in a plum barbecue sauce, tortellini en brodo, and braised chicken thighs, all made with the eco-conscious proteins.
The products debuted in NYC this week at Morton Williams supermarkets. They’re also now available in other U.S. cities at select Acme, Albertson’s, Giant, Safeway, Shaw’s and Target locations.
Colicchio is an investor and advisor to the new company. Sam Kass, the one-time White House assistant chef under former President Barack Obama, is the company’s chief strategy officer.
“The fact that we throw away 40 percent of the food that we grow is absolutely insane,” said company co-founder Justin Kamine, who first discussed the idea with Colicchio at an unrelated event about six years ago. The whole concept is really just a modern spin on old-fashioned agriculture, as farmers used to feed their leftovers to the chickens out back, he explained.
Kamine said the company currently collects about 160 tons of unwanted food daily from supermarkets in the Philadelphia area, then converts the excess foodstuffs into nutrient-rich chicken feed at its $179 million production facility outside of Trenton, N.J. The feed is supplied to independent chicken farmers, primarily in Delaware, which produce the meat for the company.
Kamine said the company is building similar multi-million-dollar facilities in Indiana and North Carolina, with the ultimate goal of opening 50 nationwide. It’s also looking to expand its product line (breasts, things, wings, etc.) to include eggs as well.
With poultry prices now soaring—the average chicken breast currently costs $4.42 per pound, up 22% from last year, according to the latest government figures—Kamine said the company aims to make its products as “affordable and accessible to as many people as possible.”
A nearly two-pound pack of Do Good-brand chicken breasts cost $15.46 at Morton Williams this week, or $7.99 per pound. That’s a lot cheaper than the organic Smart Chicken brand ($16.99 per pound) but higher than the supermarket’s basic chicken ($5.99 per pound).
When asked if the surplus-food diet created any noticeable difference in how the chicken tastes, chef Colicchio shrugged. “There’s not a big difference between this chicken and other high-quality chicken,” he said. “We’ve been all over doing taste tests with chefs, and every chef that tastes it, loves it.”
He added, “I get that question a lot. Is there any difference? No. It tastes good, but there’s no difference.”
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Chris Shott