Small Chicken Breasts Are in Short Supply

ALEXANDRIA, Va.—The fast-food chains battling to be king of the chicken sandwich now face a shortage of weapons, according to Bloomberg. Little chickens, whose quarter-pound breasts fit perfectly inside a bun, are  harder to come by.

Last summer, a small-sized bird shortage derailed Popeyes‘ efforts to steal the chicken sandwich crown from reigning champion Chick-fil-A. Now the supply will be further tested as more competitors jump into the fray.  Wendy’s is going all in, spending $30 million to beef up its own chicken supply chain, and McDonald’s recently tested new fried-chicken sandwiches in four U.S. cities.

“Consumers don’t want tough and tasteless big chickens,” said Scott Sechler, owner of poultry producer Bell & Evans. There’s “increasing consumer demand for smaller, premium-quality birds.”

For some time, chicken has been the most popular meat in the U.S. In fact, more chicken is eaten in America that an anywhere else in the world—an average of 93.5 pounds per person last year, according to the National Chicken Council. And the birds have been getting progressively bigger over the years. In 1925, birds raised for meat weighed an average of 2.5 pounds each, while today’s broilers tip the scales at more than 6 pounds.

Last summer’s sandwich skirmish focused attention on the smaller and less plentiful variety of birds. Recently, the breasts from wee chickens were nearly triple the cost of breasts from a “jumbo” nine-pounder, a historically wide difference, according to Russ Whitman of commodity researcher Urner Barry.

This week, jumbo boneless breasts were at a record low of 87 cents a pound, while prices for the smaller versions jumped to $2.53, the highest in a year, Urner Barry said.

Cutting up a bigger poultry portion takes time and labor, leading “Restaurants [to] want a product that comes ready to go at the right specifications”, said David Maloni, executive vice president of analytics at ArrowStream, supply-chain consultant.

“It’s getting harder and harder to get that” smaller bird, “so they’re paying a premium,” Maloni said.

The biggest U.S. chicken producers remain mum about their supplies of little chickens. But Jayson Penn, CEO of top producer Pilgrim’s Pride, told investors last year that the market for small birds was “call-it-tight.”

Retailers can expect the little-chicken shortfall to persist. Last year through Nov. 16, the poultry industry raised 10% more birds above 7.76 pounds than they did in the same period in 2018, Urner Barry’s Whitman said. The small ones saw a headcount drop of 2%.

“Whatever demand growth we might have on smaller breasts, there’s no new supply to meet that demand,” said Will Sawyer, an animal-protein economist at Colorado-based rural lender CoBank ACB. “Everyone wants a bite out of that market.”

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