TEMPLE, Texas — Your next visit to Pluckers might leave you paying a bit extra. The national chicken shortage is causing Pluckers to temporarily raise their prices, according a statement on the Pluckers official website.
The statement says the price increase will raise the cost of bone-in chicken wings $2 per five pieces.
Why is there a shortage in chicken?
Labor shortage, increased demand
According to the Washington Post, poultry companies say their biggest problem is finding labor. Some chicken processors were hit hard when coronavirus spread through their plants. The pandemic has also increased the demand for fried chicken as people turned to comfort food that was easy to deliver.
Winter storm hits poultry farms
There's also the winter storm in Texas back in February, but it didn't just hit the Lone Star State. Arkansas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Mississippi were all affected. These are some of the nation's biggest states for poultry farms.
Those farmers dealt not only with extreme cold but also power outages, resulting in some big losses.
All this adds up to a chicken shortage for all of us.
Meat prices have been particularly vulnerable to supply-chain disruptions; barbecue sellers, have reported dramatic spikes in the price of premium beef and pork over the past year.
For chicken wings, this spring could be a perfect storm, analysts say, high demand and supply that's flat at best. Wings are an easy and popular takeout option, which has made them one of the very few categories of food whose sales increased during the pandemic. Wing sales were up 7% last year, according to NPD Group/CREST marketing reports
In February, wing prices hit an all-time record at $2.71 a pound. But prices didn't go down after the annual wing bonanza during the Super Bowl. They kept going up.
"Americans really, really like our wings," said Paul Aho, an international chicken consultant who owns a firm called Poultry Perspective. "Wings tend to be more inelastic than other chicken products. If breast meat gets too high, people stop buying it or they buy less of it. But wings — now wings are things that are important. There's nothing like them. Gotta have them."
Do not worry, chicken is on the way
While yes, chicken production has been down to start 2021, chicken producers point to increased production over the last several weeks as evidence that calling it a “shortage” is an exaggeration and that supply can eventually catch up to demand.
In the meantime, there could be more price hikes, temporary switch to boneless wings made from breast meet or frozen wings.
A pizza spot in Norfolk, VA, Chicho's Backstage, has responded to the constant fluctuations by pricing its wings the same way a seafood restaurant might list swordfish: Market Price. Right now this means $15.50 for 10 wings, up from $12.50 the week before, causing a staffer to joke they should put wings on their menu "next to the quail or the duck." A block away, at Korean fried chicken spot Bonchon, the price for 10 wings has risen to $14.35 — up about $3 from last summer.