The “three tenors” of British cuisine — Jamie Oliver, Gordon Ramsay and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall — are joining forces to take on the supermarkets and change the nation’s eating habits.

After forcing an improvement in school dinners, Oliver now has battery farming in his sights. The public face of Sainsbury will demonstrate the “hideous realities of industrial chicken production”, for a special Channel 4 season on food.

In Jamie’s Fowl Dinners, the celebrity chef will host a dinner for food industry bosses and celebrities. During each course, Oliver promises to “demonstrate graphically” how battery-farmed eggs and chickens reach the dinner plate.

Channel 4 has filmed Oliver’s meetings with Sainsbury’s where he lobbies the chain to improve standards of chicken production. The retailer is to phase out the 150 million battery eggs it sells a year but stocks a mixture of free-range and conventionally produced frozen chicken.

A Sainsbury’s spokeswoman said: “We do not sell caged chicken. We insist that all animals destined for Sainsbury’s meat are reared to good standards of animal welfare.”

Oliver is seeking action to improve the conditions in which birds destined for all supermarkets are kept. On some farms up to 40,000 birds are kept under artificial light in closed sheds.

Andrew Mackenzie, head of factual entertainment at Channel 4, said: “Jamie’s message will be, ‘If you knew what happens to a chicken before arriving on your plate, would you still eat it?’

“Our standards are not as good as some in Europe. Even people who buy free-range chickens may not be aware that every time they eat cake, the eggs aren’t likely to be free-range, so they are essentially endorsing the battery hen. Jamie reveals how chickens go from the farm to the fork.”

In Hugh’s Chicken Run, Fearnley-Whittingstall, the River Cottage star, sets up his own intensive farm in Axminster, Devon. He discovers how chickens are fed in artificial conditions to arrive on dinner plates in just 39 days. The chef, who breaks down in tears at the plight of his chickens, challenges all major supermarkets to go free-range.

Fearnley Whittingstall said: “Modern chickens are bred to grow fast and die young and suffer huge welfare problems as a consequence. I want to challenge both the supermarkets and consumers to change their behaviour. Until the supermarkets stop devaluing chicken by selling it at discount prices, British farmers won’t be able to afford to produce to a higher welfare standard.

“If consumers are better informed about how intensive chickens are farmed, they may be prepared to pay more for a free range bird, in the same way they already do for eggs.”

Ramsay will invite the nation to cook along with him live in a unique television event. Viewers can download the ingredients list before the chef demonstrates how to cook a healthy, home-cooked meal in just one hour, for those who can keep up.

The controversial anatomist Dr Gunther von Hagens will collaborate with Oliver on Eat Yourself To Death, in which a studio audience of fast food addicts is confronted with the effects of the diet on their body. Von Hagens conducts a “human dissection” to bring home the ultimate price of poor diet and obesity.

The January Food season illustrates Channel 4’s pledge to revive its public-service remit and move on from rows over Celebrity Big Brother and rigged phone-in competitions on Richard and Judy.

Peak-time “lifestyle” shows will be scrapped. But next year Channel 4 will screen the first series in a decade from Peter Flannery, writer of the landmark BBC drama Our Friends In The North.

That series plotted the post-war history of Labour politics. The Devil’s Whore tells the story of the English Civil War through the eyes of a fictional, aristocratic young woman who is drawn to the anti-monarchist cause.

The epic £7 million serial, which Flannery has battled to bring to the screen for ten years, opens before the outbreak of civil war in 1642 and concludes with Cromwell’s death.

Channel 4 is resting Celebrity Big Brother after last year’s “racist bullying” scandal. Digital channel E4 will instead screen a “youth” spin-off in which talented teenagers compete for a prize while celebrities play the role of Big Brother.

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