Nowadays, chicken is among the most famous and often eaten meats. Frozen chicken is never preferred over fresh, high-quality chicken.
Here are some great reasons why fresh chicken home delivery is a good idea:
1. Convenience
The process of procuring chicken from the regular market is quite time-consuming and laborious for the average household. It involves multiple steps like: Getting ready and travelling to the market near your home. This requires 15-20 mins at least to and fro. Parking your vehicle also takes time in crowded markets.
Once at the market, you have to identify the right shops or vendors that sell high quality, fresh chicken. This search takes up more precious time. At the shop, time is spent navigating through the chicken on display and selecting specific cuts and pieces required for your recipes. The quantities also need careful determination.
After selection, you have to stand in billing queues for payment. This billing line itself can take 10-15 minutes at times if the shop is crowded. The purchased chicken then needs to be carefully transported back home. Public transport may not even allow carriage of raw chicken due to hygiene concerns. Driving requires diligent care that the chicken doesn’t contaminate the vehicle en route.
2. Access to High Quality
Chicken home delivery services are able to provide high quality produce because of their direct partnerships with reputable suppliers, farms and processing units. These services invest effort in identifying the best chicken farms that breed high quality breeds and follow ethical practices. The chickens are raised in clean, spacious environments and not cramped cages.
Their diet is formulated under veterinary guidance to give them the right protein and mineral content. Growth hormones or antibiotics are avoided. Once mature, utmost care is taken during transportation of the live chickens to the processing facility. The processing units affiliated with home delivery brands adhere to stringent food safety protocols. They are often certified and may also have ISO certification.
The chicken goes through hygienic slaughtering and dressing process under sanitary conditions. This prevents any external contamination. The meat is immediately chilled and vacuum packed to retain freshness. Cold chain is maintained through transit till it reaches the customer. By partnering directly with such reputable farms and processing units, home delivery brands are able to control and guarantee the quality right from the source.
3. Lower Risk of Contamination
Buying chicken from wet markets and retail stores involves a long supply chain with potential for contamination at multiple points before the chicken reaches the consumer’s kitchen. After initial dressing and packing, the chicken is transported in ambient temperatures to wholesale markets, leading to bacterial growth. Storing at wholesale markets also can have temperature control issues due to power supply failures. The chicken then passes through more unrefrigerated transport to reach retail shops, compounding contamination risks.
At the wet market itself, the chicken is kept at ambient temperatures for long periods as sellers wait to sell the fresh online chicken. The rinsing and cleaning processes followed can also lead to cross-contamination through unhygienic water and surfaces. Finally, the packaging done by retailers is often not optimal to prevent leakage or spoilage during the customer’s journey back home.
4. Ability to Order Cuts of Choice
Purchasing chicken from regular retail stores and markets restricts consumers to whatever chicken cuts and portions are available on the day of shopping. The consumer has to make do with the assortment of drumsticks, wings, thighs, breasts etc that the retailer has in stock rather than what one ideally needs. This makes it challenging to purchase chicken cuts in the right quantities and ratios for planned recipes. Often, the consumer may buy more of a particular cut than required or may fall short of a needed cut.
In contrast, ordering chicken for home delivery allows customization of choice of cuts. Consumers can select exactly which chicken parts like breasts, legs, wings, mince etc. and in what quantities they require for their weekly meal plans. Instead of being limited by in-store availability, the customer can stipulate the precise number of each cut needed. Some suppliers even allow piece-level customization. This level of flexibility allows consumers to order chicken tailored to their cuisine needs and recipe plans for the week.
5. Better Availability of Premium Options
The standard chicken options available at regular retail outlets like wet markets and neighborhood stores are limited. They usually stock regular broiler chickens and spent hens that have been mass produced for economics of scale. Such commercial chickens are injected with antibiotics and hormones to maximize growth and prevent diseases. Though affordable, they cannot be considered premium quality produce.
However, a segment of urban consumers is now looking for healthier and higher-grade chicken options even if more expensive. This includes free-range chickens that are allowed more outdoor space and movement. Their meat has better muscle development due to the exercise. Consumers also demand organic chickens fed pesticide-free organic feed to reduce chemical residue in the meat. Antibiotic-free chickens that grow naturally without medications are desired by many. Special low-fat diet chickens have lower saturated fat content.
6. Get Marinated and Ready-to-Cook Options
Chicken bought from regular retail stores is raw and unmarinated. The onus is on the consumer to marinate the cuts at home before cooking as per their own understanding of herbs, spices and marination techniques. This prep work to marinate raw chicken pieces requires time and effort and the taste depends upon individual skill.
To reduce this prep time, some chicken delivery brands offer the option of ordering ready-to-cook marinated chicken cuts, prepared by their culinary experts. The raw chicken undergoes specialized marination using proprietary recipes perfected by their chef teams. The marinade uses a tailored blend of ingredients like curd, aromatic spices, fragrant herbs, tangy lime, ginger-garlic paste etc. to infuse flavor
Conclusion
Home delivery of fresh, high-quality chicken offers numerous advantages like convenience, transparency, safety, availability and affordable pricing. Online ordering allows you to get exactly the cuts you want delivered straight to your home safely packaged and you also get the same benefits in an online fish store. For chicken lovers in India, it is certainly an option worth exploring.