They don’t explicitly obligate themselves to a 24 hours-or-under guarantee. However, the way they’ve worded it, I think the reasonable implication is that they do things on the same day. They say they start in the morning, and deliver the birds “immediately” - a reasonable interpretation of “immediately” suggests that it’s done by day-end (I’m assuming that it doesn’t take more than a work-day’s worth of work to have the chicken delivered, but that may not be correct in the industry terminology, I don’t know). Perhaps technically, they can deliver a bird the next day and still call it “immediate?”
And it seems that Dennis Mao’s company Jidori Chicken, which has trademarked the name “Jidori,” is jidori-style but isn’t necessarily the only provider of jidori chickens. That is, “jidori” is a style (not a guarantee provenance, anyway), and not all of the jidori chickens worldwide are in fact from Dennis Mao’s company. However, he has trademarked the name so that people can’t legally call a chicken not from his company by the name “Jidori Chicken”…even if another one were to use a different jidori chicken? Am I misinterpreting this? (sorry, long day, didn’t eat lunch).
From this Seattle Pi article: (https://www.seattlepi.com/lifestyle/food/article/On-Food-Jidori-translates-First-class-freshness-1229497.php)
"Cut to L.A., circa 1991, when an enterprising young man named Dennis Mao realized there was a niche to fill after the best Japanese chefs in the city started demanding Hinai-jidori chickens. Because he couldn’t import the chickens, he decided to develop a bird of equal quality.
Mao established Mao Foods and contracted with farms in the Central Valley to grow an all-natural, free-range chicken. According to Mao’s site, jidorichicken.com, the birds get no hormones, steroids or meat byproducts.
“They aren’t like a special breed, and I’m not massaging those chickens,” Mao quipped. “I wish it were more glamorous, but it’s just a good-quality bird that gets to you in less than 24 hours.”
The major differences between the American jidori and an all-natural bird from another company is the time it takes to get from slaughter to table and the condition in which it gets there. The jidori is never frozen and is overnighted to customers outside L.A. Other chickens may be frozen or nearly frozen in order to make the trip to distribution centers, which then deliver to stores, a process that may be weeks versus one day.
Mao is hard-pressed, however, to distinguish his chickens from ones raised sustainably by small organic farms and bought locally from the farmer.
“His bird will be just as tasty,” acknowledged Mao, who said most of his customers are European or Asian chefs who place particular value on the “alive this morning” ethic.
While his chickens aren’t Hinai-jidori, they are raised and processed in what Mao calls “the spirit of jidori.”
It’s similar to the distinction between Kobe beef from Japan and the “Kobe-style” American Wagyu beef, or French champagne versus American sparkling. Nothing compares to the original, but domestic interpretations can be pretty tasty.
The jidori is billed by local wholesalers as the Kobe beef of chickens, though it’s a bit of a misnomer, because the crowning glory of the American Wagyu is the marbling in the meat and the jidori is known simply for its never-frozen freshness and how fast it gets to the customer, not its fat content" (bold emphasis added)
It seems that “Jidori” in America is not about provenance, but in the quick-delivery style, which some have said happens within 24 hours, even though the website does not explicitly state that.
What if a farm to table restaurant in the US has their own farm, and produces a chicken, like Mao, that’s not actually Hinai-jidori but rather also raised and processed in the “spirit of jidori?” Can they not legally call it “Jidori Chicken” on their menu due to his trademark?