A century ago, Americans would not recognise our modern hunger for chicken. The year-long market for tender but relatively bland chicken meat is a newish phenomenon, and without it the idea of chicken cutlets, $5 rotisseries, or the McNugget would be a fantasy.
How did America go from thinking of chicken as an “alternative” meat to consuming it more than any other meat?
The story starts with corn.
How American corn fueled a taste for chicken
At the turn of the 20th century, chicken was almost always eaten in the spring. The priority for chicken raisers at the time was egg production, so after the eggs hatched, all the male birds would be fed up and then quickly harvested as “spring chickens” – young, tender birds that were sold whole for roasting or broiling (hence the term “broilers”). Outside the spring rush, you might be buying a bigger, fatter fryer or an old hen for stewing.
“Farmers were sending chickens of all sorts of ages, different feather colours, and tremendous variety to the marketplace in the early 20th century,” says Roger Horowitz, food historian and author of Putting Meat on the American Table. But almost all chickens in the market were simply surplus to egg production, making them relatively uncommon – even rare. Tender spring chickens in particular could fetch a good price. But it is worth noting, Horowitz says, that the higher price wasn’t necessarily coming from pent-up demand.
“It’s not as if consumers were clamoring for broilers,” he says. Though there was some consumer demand for chickens, the relatively high price for broilers likely had more to do with the limited, seasonal supply than a passion for poultry.
During the second world war, however, red meat was rationed, and a national campaign encouraged the consumption of poultry and fish to save “meat” (beef, pork and lamb) for “the army and our allies”. Eating chicken became more common, but the preference for young broilers, and white breast meat, persisted.
As the war drew to a close, feed millers, which buy and grind corn and other grains to feed livestock, saw a big opportunity to spur that demand for meat chickens, which consume large amounts of corn. When traditional banks refused to finance new-fangled “chicken farms”, the feed companies themselves offered farmers loans to buy feed and equipment, putting the pieces of the modern contract poultry system in place.
Consumer acceptance of broilers out of season was not automatic. In the 1930s, the average American ate 10lbs (4.5kg) or less of chicken annually; by 2017 that had risen to 64lbs (29kg), according to the Economic Research Service at the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). For decades chicken battled to be seen as a “meat”, and did not surpass its most expensive competitor, beef, in terms of overall consumption until 2010. A strong USDA-funded marketing campaign helped out.
“In the 50s and 60s, you see where these agricultural extension operations start pushing out recipes very aggressively about broilers,” Horowitz says, and as feed companies and hatcheries (most of which would eventually become so-called “integrators”, which own several of the businesses involved in chicken production) continued to consolidate the industry, they were able to more carefully calibrate the chicken itself to what would sell most profitably, focusing on lowering costs and raising proportions of the highest-demand cuts, namely breast meat.
Don Tyson, the late president of Tyson Foods, famously said: “If breast meat is worth two dollars a pound and dark meat is worth one dollar, which would I rather have?” But for generations, the idea of buying just the most coveted cuts of chicken was foreign to most consumers. It wasn’t until the 1980s that preferences began to switch to cuts of meat over the whole bird.
These companies owned and understood their chickens from egg to table and were able to exert unprecedented control over the biology of their flocks. Now, not only are they able to fine tune the birds’ characteristics with incredible accuracy, they can also map interactions with feed, environment, and processing to maximise profits.
For integrators and corn farmers alike, the investment paid off. In 2019, 9.2 billion 6lb (2.7kg) broiler chickens were harvested in the US, consuming about 1.8lbs (820g) of grain for every pound of chicken.
But the impact on chickens from the changes in production is troubling.
The modern industrial chicken
Over the past 70 years, the poultry industry has measured its success in terms of how many pounds of meat a chicken can produce for a given amount of feed. Modern chickens are more efficient than ever, with producers able to calculate to the ounce how much “input” of food, water, air and time are required to get a set amount of white and dark meat.
The modern chicken is fully industrialised.
With more than 500 chicken breeds existing on Earth, it might surprise you to learn that every nugget, breast, and cup of chicken noodle soup you’ve ever eaten likely came from one breed, a specialised cross between a Cornish and a white rock.
How did America go from thinking of chicken as an “alternative” meat to consuming it more than any other meat?
The story starts with corn.
How American corn fueled a taste for chicken
At the turn of the 20th century, chicken was almost always eaten in the spring. The priority for chicken raisers at the time was egg production, so after the eggs hatched, all the male birds would be fed up and then quickly harvested as “spring chickens” – young, tender birds that were sold whole for roasting or broiling (hence the term “broilers”). Outside the spring rush, you might be buying a bigger, fatter fryer or an old hen for stewing.
“Farmers were sending chickens of all sorts of ages, different feather colours, and tremendous variety to the marketplace in the early 20th century,” says Roger Horowitz, food historian and author of Putting Meat on the American Table. But almost all chickens in the market were simply surplus to egg production, making them relatively uncommon – even rare. Tender spring chickens in particular could fetch a good price. But it is worth noting, Horowitz says, that the higher price wasn’t necessarily coming from pent-up demand.“It’s not as if consumers were clamoring for broilers,” he says. Though there was some consumer demand for chickens, the relatively high price for broilers likely had more to do with the limited, seasonal supply than a passion for poultry.
During the second world war, however, red meat was rationed, and a national campaign encouraged the consumption of poultry and fish to save “meat” (beef, pork and lamb) for “the army and our allies”. Eating chicken became more common, but the preference for young broilers, and white breast meat, persisted.
As the war drew to a close, feed millers, which buy and grind corn and other grains to feed livestock, saw a big opportunity to spur that demand for meat chickens, which consume large amounts of corn. When traditional banks refused to finance new-fangled “chicken farms”, the feed companies themselves offered farmers loans to buy feed and equipment, putting the pieces of the modern contract poultry system in place.
Consumer acceptance of broilers out of season was not automatic. In the 1930s, the average American ate 10lbs (4.5kg) or less of chicken annually; by 2017 that had risen to 64lbs (29kg), according to the Economic Research Service at the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). For decades chicken battled to be seen as a “meat”, and did not surpass its most expensive competitor, beef, in terms of overall consumption until 2010. A strong USDA-funded marketing campaign helped out.
“In the 50s and 60s, you see where these agricultural extension operations start pushing out recipes very aggressively about broilers,” Horowitz says, and as feed companies and hatcheries (most of which would eventually become so-called “integrators”, which own several of the businesses involved in chicken production) continued to consolidate the industry, they were able to more carefully calibrate the chicken itself to what would sell most profitably, focusing on lowering costs and raising proportions of the highest-demand cuts, namely breast meat.
Don Tyson, the late president of Tyson Foods, famously said: “If breast meat is worth two dollars a pound and dark meat is worth one dollar, which would I rather have?” But for generations, the idea of buying just the most coveted cuts of chicken was foreign to most consumers. It wasn’t until the 1980s that preferences began to switch to cuts of meat over the whole bird.
These companies owned and understood their chickens from egg to table and were able to exert unprecedented control over the biology of their flocks. Now, not only are they able to fine tune the birds’ characteristics with incredible accuracy, they can also map interactions with feed, environment, and processing to maximise profits.
For integrators and corn farmers alike, the investment paid off. In 2019, 9.2 billion 6lb (2.7kg) broiler chickens were harvested in the US, consuming about 1.8lbs (820g) of grain for every pound of chicken.
But the impact on chickens from the changes in production is troubling.
The modern industrial chicken
Over the past 70 years, the poultry industry has measured its success in terms of how many pounds of meat a chicken can produce for a given amount of feed. Modern chickens are more efficient than ever, with producers able to calculate to the ounce how much “input” of food, water, air and time are required to get a set amount of white and dark meat.
The modern chicken is fully industrialised.
With more than 500 chicken breeds existing on Earth, it might surprise you to learn that every nugget, breast, and cup of chicken noodle soup you’ve ever eaten likely came from one breed, a specialised cross between a Cornish and a white rock.
by Sarah Mock, The Guardian | Read more:
Image: Glowimages/Getty
