Growing demand for crispy chicken sandwiches has prompted restaurants and fast food chains to “frantically” look for small birds of this species.

Restaurant companies including KFC and Chick-fil-A have begun looking for chickens weighing around 4 pounds as they claim the smaller ones are more tender and flavorful than the larger ones.

Chick-fil-A, America’s largest chicken chain, has long relied on small birds for its sandwiches. KFC, the chain’s second-largest, said this year in internal messages to US franchise owners that fresh bone-in chicken, the chain’s trademark, would drive up costs.

Chicken suppliers such as Tyson Foods, Pilgrim’s Pride and Wayne-Sanderson Farms have been reluctant to produce small chickens over the years because they are less profitable than larger ones that produce “more meat,” according to poultry executives and analysts. industry.

“The cost to produce a 4-pound and an 8-pound chicken is the same, but as chicken prices go up, heavier poultry becomes more profitable for processors,” said the president of agricultural consultancy FarmEcon LLC.

Chicken suppliers switched to larger poultry a few years ago, limiting the supply of smaller 4-pound chicken, industry officials told the WSJ.

The number of small chicks slaughtered weekly is falling from nearly 30% of the market in 2005 to about 15% in 2023, according to the USDA.

Chicken meat in general has been in short supply since the start of the pandemic as demand has outstripped industry production, driving breast and wing prices soaring.

In recent months, meat packers have stocked processing lines and prices for more widely produced large poultry have fallen.

Source: Wall Street Journal