back

Is McDonald’s to blame for last year’s chicken wing shortage?

Posted 30 August 2013 in

National

From The Week:

Last winter, the National Chicken Council sparked a rumor that Super Bowl fans could face a national chicken wing shortage, after prices for the snack reached record highs. And while analysts at the time were quick to blame gluttonous football fans, it looks like McDonald’s may have played a part in the scare.

In a statement in January, the trade group predicted that fans would eat 1 percent fewer chicken wings than they did in 2012, and attributed the drop to widespread droughts in 2012, as well as the Renewable Fuel Standard, a federal program that demands a portion of the U.S.’s corn crop be converted into ethanol. Those factors led corn prices to spike, said the group, which in turn led to higher chicken food prices, which in turn led to fewer chickens.

But as Matt Yglesias of Slate pointed out at the time, demand for chicken wings appeared to be increasing dramatically:

So where was all that demand coming from? Enter McDonald’s, which this week announced plans to reintroduce its bone-in Mighty Wings at its 14,100 U.S. locations — a roll-out set to take place September 9 through September 24.

To prepare for the tsunami of chicken wings, McDonald’s has probably been stockpiling them for 18 months, analyst Nick Setyan told Vanessa Wong at Bloomberg Businessweek.

Read the full story here.

Fuels America News & Stories

Fuels
View post:

Is McDonald’s to blame for last year’s chicken wing shortage?