WASHINGTON — With the second biggest eating day of the year after Thanksgiving upon us, there’s no hotter time for chicken wings. According to the National Chicken Council’s 2024 Wing Report, Americans will devour 1.45 billion wings while watching Kansas City and San Francisco battle for the championship trophy.
“Football is great. Wings are great. But they’re even better together,” said Council spokesman Tom Super. “Sure, you can have your chips, your guacamole, your pizza. But when it comes to menus next Sunday, wings rule the roost. So, grab a wet nap and enjoy America’s favorite party food for the Big Game.”
To help visualize just how many wings that is:
- 1.45 billion wings is enough for every man, woman and child in the United States to eat four wings each.
- If Kansas City Coach Andy Reid ate 50 wings every day, it would take him 79,452 years to eat all 1.45 billion.
- 1.45 billion wings is enough to put 693 wings on every seat in all 30 NFL stadiums.
- If laid end-to-end, 1.45 billion wings would stretch 1/3 of the way to the moon.
- If each wing represented one second moving forward, 1.45 billion would be 46 years from now, or the year 2070.
Visit our TikTok page to watch a video animation of these numbers: https://www.tiktok.com/@chickencheck.in/video/7330083982559677742
This year’s projection is flat compared to 2023, with USDA reporting chicken production levels are slightly down from last year and wing stocks in cold storage down 13% in November compared to the year prior. This could explain the higher demand and thus the higher wholesale prices we are seeing on wings. At the retail level, fresh chicken wing prices are down approximately 5%, and frozen wing prices are down 11% compared to January of 2023, according to Circana data.
“One of these days, Buffalo will get back to the Big Game which would give wing consumption a nice boost,” Super noted. “Maybe we’ll see Taylor Swift breaking out the ‘seemingly ranch’ again, to dip a wing in this time, though.”
Source: The National Chicken Council