Channel 4 - Jimmy And The Giant Supermarket (2012)

With food prices on the rise and consumers feeling the pinch, can shoppers still afford to care about where the food they put on the table every day comes from? Rare breed pig farmer Jimmy Doherty has a dream to make free range food affordable for everyone. So he's challenged Britain's biggest supermarket, Tesco, to let him prove he can do it, and they've agreed. Animal welfare standards might have come a long way in the UK, but most of the country's chickens are still reared intensively, 60% of pigs still spend their whole lives in sheds, and tens of thousands of dairy calves are needlessly slaughtered each year because it's too expensive to rear them. Jimmy's taking on three of Tesco's best-selling own brand products and will work with the company to try and make higher-welfare versions for the same affordable price. If he's successful, they'll launch them in their stores.

Part 1: Meatballs
Jimmy tries to transform Tesco's best-selling own brand meatballs (they sell 35 million of them a year). In doing so, he spots an opportunity to tackle one of dairy farming's biggest secrets - the killing each years of tens of thousands of male dairy calves because there's no market for them. Jimmy believes these calves should be reared on to produce British rose veal - a high welfare, high quality meat. Can he persuade dairy farmers to work with him, come up with a recipe to impress Tesco, and convince the public that the stigma surrounding veal is a thing of the past?


Part 2: Sausages
Jimmy takes on Tesco's best-selling own brand sausages - which sell in their millions - to see if he can produce a free -range version for the same affordable price. He visits Tesco supplying farms to find out how they make their sausages, and looks for ways to use pigs reared to higher welfare standards in his own bangers. He seeks out the cheap cuts and parts of free-range pigs (such as offal) that would otherwise go to waste or be exported abroad. Can he convince Tesco that a free-range sausage made from offal will go down well with the public?


Part 3: Chicken Kiev
Jimmy Doherty tries to make free range chicken Kievs for Tesco, but will Tesco's customer tasters like them? Jimmy also campaigns against the slaughter of thousands of male dairy calves. And he gears up for the launch day of his affordable free-range products, nervous to see if the public will buy them or not.







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