You should be paying attention to the chicken nugget!
An op-ed written about poultry economics, before everyone became an expert in chickens and egg prices.
In April 2024, I wrote an op-ed about the poultry industry and how all eyes should be on nuggets, as they can be an economic indicator for meat and restaurant sector. Little did I know all eyes would be on poultry in 2025, but for their eggs, or lack thereof. Here is the piece, with a sprinkle of New York and Cornell influence.
4/01/2024
In the world of fun facts and icebreaker tales, few can match my connection to the chicken nugget's origin story. My work office is in the very building where this iconic food item was first created by Robert C. Baker, a professor and poultry scientist. Bruckner Hall sits on the campus of Cornell University and etched its name into culinary history by inventing the chicken nugget.
Some claim that he's credited for doubling the consumption of chicken in the diets of Americans while propelling the popularity of poultry across continents. But maybe, the culinary triumph speaks to the strength of consumerism and market power of a chicken.
In agriculture, we’re mostly fixated on the consumer behaviors of beef and pork, and so are our social issues. We’re focusing on climate practices on cattle and current animal housing standards with hogs like California’s Prop 12 — important issues to simmer through the political system.
There’s not enough emphasis, however, on poultry — especially chicken. Chicken is wrapped around the American diet, being its top consumed meat, and soon to make up 41% of all meat consumed globally.
They’re perfect indicators of how the meat market, restaurant industry, and consumer demand are heading.
The recent H5N1 virus outbreak in dairy cows is a perfect example. Originally a pathogenic avian influenza virus, it mutated in 2021 and is now impacting goats, dairy cows, and humans — in addition to its original avian virus hosts. The poultry industry quickly increased awareness, prevention, and on-farm policies with the word of potential spread.
Other livestock industries, like dairy, are now learning from avian experts on how to manage a potentially harmful outbreak.
We probably don’t look at chickens too seriously because of the quantity of meat per bird, simple management practices and they often take the form of a dinosaur chicken nugget. The demand for chicken nuggets has only increased since its creation in 1963 but quickly tied itself to the restaurant industry and to the trends of consumers.
Between 2017 and 2018, economists argued that consumers have lost their taste for fast food chicken nuggets, from factory-processed meat. They were correct; chicken nuggets were appearing less on the restaurant menu. However, were consumers redefining what chicken nuggets look like?
In the same year, Chick-fil-A nuggets and specialty sandwiches were becoming popular on the menu, prized for being fresh chicken, battered or grilled in the kitchen, not processed in the factory.
Whether processed or fresh, the term chicken nugget wasn’t going anywhere, a clear indication and an up-and-coming market. Year to follow, restaurants such as Popeyes and even McDonald's released chicken entrees, similar to the transition in 2017.
Chicken aren’t only predicting trends in the restaurant industry, they are a great supply and demand market to follow. A simple chicken has more risk than you think, therefore making it a great indicator of change.
When Tyson Chicken announced the closure of 3 plants in the central US, it precluded significant quarterly losses for Tyson, a major meat packing company.
In addition to closure, many processing plants aren’t reaching daily production capacity. Maybe the federal push for regional and local meat processing is coming to fruition, decentralizing from larger companies.
Whatever the next menu item, or food chain that finds a unique market for chicken worldwide, is one to look out for.​
So, economists, marketers, and farm policy gurus, the next time you want to predict the American meat market, check in with your poultry producers and look out for changes in the infamous Cornell chicken nugget.