Eager to dive into a plate of chicken wings or a tender chicken sandwich? You might have to wait a while.
Restaurants across the United States are saying they are struggling to keep a steady stream of chicken tenders, breasts and wings on their customers’ plates due to a nationwide poultry shortage.
According to the Wall Street Journal, franchises such as KFC, Wingstop and Buffalo Wild Wings are saying they are paying high prices for poultry, and many independent eateries have gone for weeks without wings.
For comparison, boneless skinless chicken breast averaged averaged around $1 a pound last year, according to the Journal. Now it’s trading at $2.04 a pound.
National Chicken Council spokesman Tom Super told USA Today there was a “very tight supply” but said it was “short of a shortage.”
“Chicken producers are doing everything they can to overcome the devastating impact of Mother Nature when she inflicted the once-in-a-lifetime winter storm on Texas and nearby states – major chicken producing regions,” Super said.
Demand for chicken has increased during the pandemic, most likely due to people seeking out comfort food. Fast food restaurants like Wendys, Popeyes and McDonalds have increased demand as well as they’ve increased their menu offerings during what has been dubbed the “chicken sandwich wars.”
In addition to the winter storms, coronavirus outbreaks at meat processing plants early in the pandemic forced many plants to close temporarily, putting more strain on the supply chain.
All of this means that restaurants are having trouble meeting orders
“We’re getting about two-thirds of what we’d typically order and there’s some days our food reps will call us and they say, ‘We might not be able to get you anything’,” Jeff Feather, of Duff’s Famous Wings in Buffalo, New York, told CBS.
Whether this demand will lead to higher prices at the supermarket is unclear at this point, though Super told USA Today he expects production to resume to a normal pace in the coming months.
In the meantime, can we interest you in some tofu?
