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Early in the spring, Patsy Vivares, co-owner of Sticky’s Chicken restaurant in Houston, drove to her local supplier to purchase her usual order: a 40-pound box of chicken wings. When she stopped in front of the Depot restaurant, however, she was surprised to find that it no longer had wings. Vivares tried another place; strangely enough, it was also over. She called her grocer to see if he could find any wings and ended up in a cul-de-sac there too. “That was shocking because we’ve had a food truck since 2014 and never had a problem,” said Vivares. Her salesman explained that the deadly winter storm in February, the cold front that triggered the failure of the Texas power grid, was partly responsible: Freezing temperatures, buildings destroyed by broken pipes and scarce food and water supplies caused more than a million chickens to die, among other things.
Even when Vivares and other wing joint owners were able to find supplies of poultry, they encountered a new problem: the wholesale prices of wings had increased astronomically. Jarrod Rector, the Houston-based owner of the STUFF’d Wings food truck, which specializes in bone-in chicken wings loaded with seafood like boudin, macaroni, and cheese, says he saw the price per pound of wings from $ 1.20 to about $ 4 in recent months. Other pieces of chicken, namely breasts, also saw spines, but wings were significantly worse off as they were expensive pieces and were usually ordered in a bundle. In addition to the high cost, sappy, freshly vaccinated Texans flocking from their homes to bars are causing a rush for the limited supply. The salad days on Ten Cent Wing Wednesdays could be old history for the time being. Required July 4th wing plates may even need to be swapped for buffalo cauliflower spears this weekend.
The big chicken wing shortage of 2021 didn’t come overnight. When the COVID-19 pandemic turned food supply chains upside down last year, chicken vendors struggled to turn as many of their restaurant customers were forced to close indefinitely. In the spring of 2020, poultry packaging facilities were either operating at limited capacity or were closed for weeks due to labor shortages and virus outbreaks. Craig Coufal, a Texas-based poultry specialist with A&M AgriLife Extension, noted in a recent report that birds raised during the pandemic tended to be grown slightly smaller for grocery stores rather than restaurants. (Birds destined for chicken strips, nuggets, and wings usually grow larger than their grocery counterparts.) Meanwhile, restaurants and bars that managed to weather the pandemic and walk have seen a relative surge in chicken wing orders in 2020 – because wings hold up so well. Wingstop, which has nearly 1,300 locations in the United States and is headquartered in the Dallas area, saw sales grow 32 percent.
At the beginning of 2021, production of ready-to-cook broiler chickens (which were raised for meat) was still declining, with the number of pounds produced declining 8.7 percent in January from the same month in 2020, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Of course, winter storm Texas – the fifth largest producer of broilers, according to Tom Super, Senior Vice President of Communications at the National Chicken Council – did no favors either. Corn and soybean crops that were used for chicken feed this year withered and died in February, and feed continues to be expensive. Hundreds of thousands of chicks were euthanized because they could not be transported even in the treacherous road conditions in the February frost, as the Wall Street Journal reports. “Chicken producers are doing everything they can to overcome the devastating effects of Mother Nature when she inflicted the one-time winter storm on Texas and the nearby states – major chicken producing regions,” Super wrote via email. “Also, keep in mind that this weather event happened in February, right after the biggest event of the year for wings: the Super Bowl.”
The supply chain has still not fully caught up with recent demand, especially as thousands of restaurants and bars reopen their doors. But in order to prepare popular bar stool snacks such as chicken cookies and wings, restaurants need breasts or wings – and not the cut that is preferred for heavier meals such as thighs. “Demand has gone through the roof,” Super wrote, adding, “And with restaurants reopening when restrictions are lifted, chicken processors have had to adjust their product lines and supply chains to move back to more ‘normal’ retail compared to. Food service mix. “
To make ends meet, STUFF recently increased its prices from $ 10.75 for a ten-piece grand piano order to $ 13.25. And Sticky’s is now charging around $ 2 for its wings (was $ 1.30), which come in flavors like smoked shallots and honey sriracha, in both the food truck and brick and mortar store in Houston’s Lower Heights. “It’s not that we want to ask that much,” Vivares said. “We just don’t have a choice, otherwise we won’t be able to survive.”
It’s not just shabby local restaurant owners who are having a hard time now, as wings have become a coveted rarity rather than a cheap bar standard. Wingstop has launched a brand new online menu called “Thighstop” that uses the meatier and less expensive cut with familiar spices. Pluckers, the Austin-based wing chain, has temporarily raised its prices to reflect “the highest wing prices in history”.
It’s unclear how long chicken prices will stay sky high, but Super says the tight market should ease as production returns to normal after the pandemic. Until then, restaurants and bars known for their wings will have to be content with what they can find. Both Rector and Vivares say that the higher prices for the respective wings of their restaurants do not yet have to induce customers to buy them whole, which could be due to a cultural acceptance that is a bit more expensive than us after the pandemic introduced us.
Perhaps the thighs will take off until prices normalize again, but some are skeptical that it will become a bar standard like the wings have been for decades. Recently, Rector went to a local restaurant and brewhouse. It wasn’t chicken wings, but a waiter told him the joint could serve thighs as an alternative, so he ordered it with lemon and pepper seasoning. But he was disappointed. He didn’t find “that big old piece of meat” appetizing, he said. “Replacing chicken wings with thighs just doesn’t seem right. And I don’t think the market will buy that as far as customers are concerned. “
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