Super Bowl fans love those chicken wings

Sunday, March 4, 2012

Football and chicken wing consumption go together, says the National Chicken Council (NCC) in the United States.

The organization predicted that 100 million pounds of chicken wings would be consumed during Super Bowl weekend, with half ordered from restaurants and half from retailers. The NCC predicts that during 2012, more than three billion pounds, about 25 billion wing portions will be consumed, with 2.2 billion pounds from food services and 800 million pounds from retail groceries.

Wholesale prices for chicken wings jumped to record levels ahead of the Super Bowl, with prices ranging from US$1.75 to US$1.96 a pound in the Midwest, for the week of Jan. 16 to Jan. 20. The average price in December was $1.47, more than double the price six months before, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) data.

In Costco in Canada, a low-cost retailer, on Jan. 27, wings were priced at $8.39 a kilogram, 10 cents less than skin-on and bone-in chicken breasts. Drum sticks cost $5.39 a kilogram. The American chicken industry needs all the good news it can get. In 2011, Brazilian chicken consumption surpassed the United States for the first time. The United States is the third largest chicken consumer but the largest producer. China is second in both production and consumption. Brazil can produce and sell even more chicken – about 30 per cent is exported – but port infrastructure is an issue.

Meanwhile, commercial hatcheries in 19 key states in December set five per cent fewer eggs than in the same month a year before, according to the USDA. BF