FOOD poverty in York is being tackled with the launch of new business selling cut-price chickens to families.

Inspired by The Press’ Stamp Out Poverty campaign, entrepreneur Robert Hargreaves has created Yorkshire Chicken.

Based at his home in Huntington, the business sources chickens directly from the wholesaler before offering them for sale at a fraction of the price of leading supermarkets.

Not only is Mr Hargreaves hoping to help families by offering cheaper food, he has also pledged to donate ten per cent of all profits made by Yorkshire Chicken to foodbank charity Trussell Trust.

The trust runs the York Foodbank, which is based at the Gateway Centre in Front Street, Acomb.

Mr Hargreaves, who has previously worked at British Sugar, Nestlé and Yorkshire Water, said: “I have been doing a lot of work and research into self-sufficiency.

“My aim with this is to create an end to end model and publish it to help people save between a third and a half of their family food outgoings a year.

“It was this work, and campaigns in the media, including the widespread promotion of social enterprise schemes, coupled with the Stamp Out Poverty campaign, that made me realise that lower-profit, higher-volume business models can help provide people with affordable products at up to 50 per cent lower prices than many supermarkets.

“So I decided to launch Yorkshire Chicken.

“Orders have been coming in thick and fast, so I’m estimating a profit of more than £1,000 which is very good for the first month trading.”

The business has been set up with an automated telephone system for orders, with deliveries currently being made every day to cope with demand.