Kosher chicken stocks are back to normal after a shortage of birds when thousands of chickens were declared unfit for kosher consumption by rabbinic inspectors.

The discovery of a trauma in the leg tendon meant the birds failed the halachic requirements, explained Stephen Grossman, managing director of leading kosher poultry suppliers Lewco-Pak:  “They were fit for human consumption but not for kosher consumption because of higher welfare requirements.”

A defect of this kind in a whole batch of birds occurs every couple of years, he said. “It is something in the kosher industry we look out for.”

But this week’s chicken supplies had been “phenomenal”, he added.