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A Chicken Wing Shortage Means Your Football Sundays May Never Be The Same
*Deep breath* This is ok. *Deep breath* Everything is going to be fine.
We’ve seen some bad food shortages in our day. Avocados. Olive Oil. Vanilla. Each threatened to upend our diets in one horrible way or another, but we managed to get through them and, frankly, come out stronger on the other side. (Eh, maybe.)
But a CHICKEN WING shortage? At the very START of football season? The poultry gods must be cruel.
However, according to the Wall Street Journal, increased demand along with a shortening poultry supply has led the price of wings to jump from an average of $1.50 to $2.09 per pound, which means that for restaurants that rely heavily on wings (or perhaps more accurately, “Wings, Beers, Sports”) the sales and "cheap wing days" that used to be a hallmark of their business could be heading to the sidelines this season.
And it’s not entirely unusual for chicken wing shortages to happen this time of year—Tom Super of the National Chicken Council explained to Bon Apétit that chicken prices and consumption peaks three times a year: before the Super Bowl, March Madness, and around the end-of-summer grilling/beginning of football season. But the return of football coupled with the fact that 2017 marked a record level of chicken wing consumption by Americans, has plunged us into our current dark/wing-less timeline.
However, in the spirit of fairness, the writing may have been on the wall for some time. Business Insider reported in July that Buffalo Wild Wings would be “killing Half-Price Tuesday and replacing it with a new boneless wings deal.” Boneless wings, which are made of the much cheaper/more plentiful chicken breast, have a lower price point than traditional wings, which means that the odds are good that deals on boneless wings are going to have to get you through the rest of your football season/regular life season. Buffalo Wild Wings also pointed out at that time that popularity of boneless wings was at an all-time high, even surpassing more traditional wings.
But don’t tell that to the Internet. It doesn't seem to be coping well.
Stay strong, wing lovers. Stay strong.
