Where does Swiss Chalet restaurant procure its chickens?

Answer 1

I was unable to find a direct source. However, in 2005 McGill University opened a new poultry centre with funding from multiple sources, including 500,000$ from Cara Foods, the parent company of both Swiss Chalet and Harvey's, and also 300,000$ from St. Hubert. The new centre will attempt to devise new antibiotics and methods to deal with chicken disease because "[p]oultry is big business in Canada, with almost 50,000 jobs associated with various aspects of the industry, contributing close to $9.5 billion to the economy. It is the goal of the Macdonald researchers to protect the investment..."

According to McGill's website, (the link is below), one of the lead researchers said, ""We have all the tools available to understand the Biology of the chicken, including genotyping. But certain other conditions are not controlled, like the need to strike a balance between cost and return," he said, adding that conditions for raising chickens may not always take into account the health of the animal."

Furthermore, another centre researcher said, "The cardiopulmonary problem comes from the broiler chicken growing too fast," said Ruiz. "Whereas 30 years ago, it used to take 16 weeks to get the broiler to market, it now takes only 6 weeks, or 42 days for a two-kilo chicken."

While there's nothing concrete, the above does suggest that the restaurant chain is relying on a factory-based system for the poultry they serve in their restaurants.

http://www.mcgill.ca/reporter/37/17/poultry/

Answer 2

I was unable to find a direct source. However, in 2005 McGill University opened a new poultry centre with funding from multiple sources, including 500,000$ from Cara Foods, the parent company of both Swiss Chalet and Harvey's, and also 300,000$ from St. Hubert. The new centre will attempt to devise new antibiotics and methods to deal with chicken disease because "[p]oultry is big business in Canada, with almost 50,000 jobs associated with various aspects of the industry, contributing close to $9.5 billion to the economy. It is the goal of the Macdonald researchers to protect the investment..."

According to McGill's website, (the link is below), one of the lead researchers said, ""We have all the tools available to understand the biology of the chicken, including genotyping. But certain other conditions are not controlled, like the need to strike a balance between cost and return," he said, adding that conditions for raising chickens may not always take into account the health of the animal."

Furthermore, another centre researcher said, "The cardiopulmonary problem comes from the broiler chicken growing too fast," said Ruiz. "Whereas 30 years ago, it used to take 16 weeks to get the broiler to market, it now takes only 6 weeks, or 42 days for a two-kilo chicken."

While there's nothing concrete, the above does suggest that the restaurant chain is relying on a factory-based system for the poultry they serve in their restaurants, through the use of scientific experimentation. This author recommends more evidence is needed before a final conclusion can be reached.