[1] Today the poulet de Bresse has the reputation of being the best quality table chicken in the world.

[4] Alan Davidson described the poulet de Bresse as the "aristocrat of modern table poultry",[5] and Heston Blumenthal selected it for one of the dishes in his book In Search of Perfection.

Approximately 1.2 million poulet de Bresse birds are produced each year, about 0.1% of the total annual production of chickens in France; about 10% are exported.

From about 35 days they are fed cereals and dairy products; the diet is intentionally kept low in protein so that the birds will forage for insects.

They are then "finished" in an épinette, a cage in a darkened fattening shed, where they are intensively fed on maize and milk.