Chicken Wing Prices up Ahead of Super Bowl
By: NBC News
Updated: January 25, 2013
Last summer's drought has come home to roost in the price you'll be paying for those Super Bowl party chicken wings.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture said Thursday that chicken prices were up 6 percent in December, versus a year earlier. That's more than triple how much overall food prices have risen over the same time.
Food economists had been warning that the price of foods such as meats and dairy would likely rise because of the summer's severe drought.
In the case of poultry, the drought led to a rise in prices for the grains that are typically used to feed animals such as chickens and turkeys. That, in turn, has pushed up the price of the chickens.
There are other factors that also are making chicken wings in particular more expensive this year, said Ryan Koory, an economist with IHS Global Insights who specializes in agriculture.
Last year, Koory said there was a glut in supply for chickens that led some farmers to decrease the number of chickens they produced. That in turn started to push prices up.
In addition, he said, in the past year and a half or so consumers have increasingly been turning to cheaper dark meat, such as chicken wings, over pricier white meat such as chicken breasts. Koory said there's been especially high demand for chicken wings.
All that will likely translate into higher prices when you go to buy your chicken wings for next Sunday's matchup between the Baltimore Ravens and the San Francisco 49ers.
Despite the higher prices, Koory said chicken remains a better deal than other protein options.
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