Economy
Related: About this forumChicken Wing Prices Catch Fire Before Super Bowl
The chicken-wing market is red hot.
Prices for wholesale wings are heading for a 24 percent surge in January, more than wiping out their 2018 losses, government data show. Demand is soaring ahead of Super Bowl weekend, when Americans are forecast to eat a record 1.38 billion wings, according to the National Chicken Council.
While prices usually jump at this time of year thanks to the annual football parties (or for some, Puppy Bowl parties), this months gains are unusual -- its the biggest January jump in records going back to 2011. Thats because the market tumbled last year amid a boom in production. Wings dropped so low that buyers swooped in to grab the deals, said Russ Whitman, senior vice president at commodity researcher Urner Barry.
Orders by food-service suppliers in New England and Southern California in particular are seeing big gains, he said. At the same time, poultry producers have recently raised fewer jumbo chickens, meaning tighter supplies of the big wings that are considered a premium product. Gains for jumbo-wing prices are driving the overall market, he said.
At the end of last year, food suppliers thought My gosh, wings are a bargain again, and theres plenty of them, so were going to start featuring them again, Whitman said. Today, this wing market is on fire.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-31/wing-prices-catch-fire-as-buyers-swoop-in-before-super-bowl?srnd=premium
democratisphere
(17,235 posts)The Rose suppliers do the same thing in a couple weeks.
appleannie1943
(1,303 posts)And I prefer breaded pieces of chicken breasts if I use Thai sweet chili dipping sauce. So if they raise the price of wings to make a killing on them, just use a different part of the chicken.
keithbvadu2
(36,829 posts)A marketing success over the years. Wings used to be the trash part of the chicken.