KFC chicken sandwich/Photo courtesy of Chicago Tribune
There is a nationwide chicken shortage, and experts claim that the pandemic and American lust for sandwiches is the cause, reported ABC 7.
Quarantine caused many Americans to be shut inside their homes, and with this sequestration came the need to indulge in comfort foods. When most people think about comfort food, they think about macaroni and cheese or cake. But now chicken is on that list.
Along with layoffs in the poultry industry during the coronavirus crisis, the hankering for nuggets, buffalo wings, and even over-the-top chicken sandwiches like Popeye’s, coupled with poor distribution, the ability to access the delicious bird is now in peril.
“We didn’t have optimal chicken distribution. Some chicken was in some parts of the world that needed to be in other parts of the world. We just couldn’t move it around,” said Ben Kaplan, the CEO of TOP Agency, a network of marketing agencies.
The National Chicken Council said that the severe weather earlier this year in Texas and Arkansas that caused weeks-long power outages in some areas were also responsible for this crisis of crunchiness. Still, they reported in their annual Wing Report that Americans ate 1.42 billion buffalo wings on Super Bowl Sunday alone this year.
Although experts mainly placed the problem on the pandemic, they also noted that the increased demand that began in 2019 on account of fast food chains competing for top honors in the category of the best sandwich got the ball rolling on the current shortage.
This week, in a report of earnings, executives from noted fowl peddlers like KFC and Wingstop said that there isn’t enough supply to go around. North Carolina-based chain Bojangles also reported that 750 of its locations were out of chicken tenders. In January, KFC introduced another chicken sandwich and called it their “best chicken sandwich ever.”
As with most business trends, problems are rarely the result of one factor. Between a worldwide health crisis, high unemployment, and an emerging labor shortage, the chicken shortage results from a perfect storm.
But, one industry’s loss is always another industry’s gain. In response to the chicken shortage, Beyond Meat, the plant-based protein company, is expected to launch its vegan chicken simulation this summer.