Sainsbury's renaming Chicken Kiev to show support for Ukraine

Sainsbury's have rebranded the chicken kiev to chicken kyiv to "stand united" with the people of Ukraine.

Kyiv, the name of Ukraine's capital city, is a spelling derived from the Ukrainian language name Київ. The city was known as Kiev during the era of the Soviet Union from the Russian language name Киев.

The announcement was made following a viral social media campaign that called on major supermarkets, including Sainsbury's, Tesco, Asda, Morrisons and Marks & Spencer, to change the name of the chicken dish to show solidarity.

Hundreds of Twitter users banded together, with one saying: "Why not rebrand your chicken kievs as chicken kyiv and donate proceeds from sales to Ukraine? #kievsforkyiv."

Another added: "A small thing, but @Tesco, @Morrisons, @sainsburys, @asda, @marksandspencer, @IcelandFoods when you have your next production run, how about rebranding a certain chicken dish you sell to kyiv."

Despite its success, Marks & Spencer said they would not be changing the name. A spokesperson told The Independent: "Marks & Spencer will always use the Kyiv spelling whenever and wherever we are talking about the Ukrainian city,"

"'Chicken kiev' has been in use for over 100 years and has been recognised by our customers since M&S brought the product to the high street in the 1970s."

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Sainsbury's have also followed in the footsteps of Waitrose, Co-op and Morrisons in withdrawing Russian-made vodka from their shelves. In addition, they have donated £2 million to Comic Relief to support Ukrainians affected by the war.

A spokesperson for Sainsbury's said: "We stand united with the people of Ukraine. We have reviewed our product range and have decided to remove from sale all products that are 100% sourced from Russia.

"This means that from today we will no longer sell two products – Russian standard vodka and Karpayskiye black sunflower seeds."

The Independent has a proud history of campaigning for the rights of the most vulnerable, and we first ran our Refugees Welcome campaign during the war in Syria in 2015. Now, as we renew our campaign and launch this petition in the wake of the unfolding Ukrainian crisis, we are calling on the government to go further and faster to ensure help is delivered. To find out more about our Refugees Welcome campaign, click here. To sign the petition click here. If you would like to donate then please click here for our GoFundMe page.

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