Chicken wings and breasts as relief for consumers during inflation season

In the last months, the lower prices for chicken wings and breasts are creating an excellent opportunity for supermarkets and restaurants to rank chicken as an inflation-fighting protein product for consumers.

According to CoBank, this is considered good news after covid. Most of that time, poultry production struggled to have enough products and supply consumer demands (especially take-out wings) despite the challenges and constraints in 2020 and 2021. Also, the slaughter rates by week were between 4 to 6 percent above year-ago levels, to reduce around 4 percent YoY until 2020 (Figure 1).

The drop in the slaughter rates led to significant problems for wing supplies. This is as “we’re stuck with the age-old problem of each bird having only two wings,” said Brian Earnest,  Lead economist for animal protein in CoBank’s Knowledge Exchange division.

Figure 1. Weekly broiler slaughter. Source: CoBank

• The strong demand coincided with the ongoing supply squeeze, which
  
  
  
  
  TO CONTINUE READING REGISTER IT IS COMPLETELY FREE
  
  
  Access to articles in PDF
  Keep up to date with our newsletters
  Receive the magazine for free in digital version
  
  
  
  REGISTRATION
  
  
  
  
  ACCESS
  YOUR ACCOUNT
  
  
  
  
  
  
  LOGIN
  
  
  Lost your password?