Why is there a shortage on chicken wings but not other chicken parts?
Why is there a chicken wing shortage but not other chicken parts?
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Answers ( 1 )
The national (or some would say worldwide) chicken wing shortage is an interesting and murky story that has a few components behind it. Even with a certain amount of inspection, some of the reasons behind it (or even whether it truly is the case) aren't entirely clear. Here are some of the supposed factors:
- In fact, there were shortages of other chicken parts, too. It was just that the wing shortage was more notable. Still, many other chicken parts have been hard to come by at various points in the last year and a half.
- Large chicken processing companies such as Tyson and Purdue were having trouble with their large-scale productions, especially early in the pandemic. They couldn't get enough employees to keep processing chickens at the usual rate, and many large scale distributors depend on these providers rather than local farmers.
- There was a significant jump in the interest and purchase of comfort foods, of which wings are one of the most popular. So demand for wings soared when people were locked down.
- Each chicken only has two wings, but an order of chicken wings is usually, three to six times that. Meanwhile, breasts are usually only one to an order. So far more chickens are needed to provide an order of wings than an order of most other parts of the chicken.
- There are those who say that the shortage was partly a propaganda/news story put out there by those who wanted to create more demand and coverage for what they were selling. Most of the coverage didn't mention the other parts of the bird at all, rather than saying that there was no shortage of those. So PR could be part of the equation.
So while no one thing caused the chicken wing shortage, there were a number of factors that contributed to the rising price of a good order of wings.