Chicken sustains U.S. fast-food chains as cost of beef rises
Executives have touted their new chicken sandwiches, wraps and wings as healthier and less expensive alternatives to beef in recent earnings calls. Tyson Foods, one of the world's largest poultry companies, said on a recent investor call that its chicken business saw a "significant turnaround" in 2024 and expects strong chicken demand to drive higher profits in 2025, according to the report.
In 1970, the average person in the United States ate about 50 pounds of chicken each year. Today, that number has more than doubled, and the Agriculture Department expects chicken consumption to surpass 100 pounds for the first time in 2024.
Fast-food chains have followed that trend in recent years, as rising labor and food costs pummel their bottom lines, said Hudson Riehle, the National Restaurant Association's senior research vice president.
Chicken often becomes a go-to protein for restaurants and consumers when inflation bites because it takes fewer natural resources to produce, said David Anderson, a livestock economist at Texas A&M University. The average price of a fresh, whole chicken in the United States was 1.99 U.S. dollars a pound in October, while the same amount of ground beef fetched 5.59 dollars, according to federal government data.
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