Super Bowl 2022: Chicken Wing Prices Increasing
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- The countdown to Super Bowl Sunday is on, And that means plans for parties are in full swing too.
But this year, the price of people's favorite game-time snack could come at unfavorable prices.
Supply chain issues, brought on by the pandemic, have sent meat prices soaring. Brittany Barber, who works at Gunny's Lounge in New Kensington, told KDKA that she has watched the price of wings skyrocket over the past two years.
"Once COVID hit, that really put the prices up to about $150 a case of wings. Just everything has gone up. Even the oil for the wings went from about $19 to $45 for a 35 pound," Barber said.
This has led to many small businesses, including Gunny's, upping their wing prices. At Gunny's, a dozen costs about $29, a steep price customers seem willing to pay for those crispy, golden, jumbo wings.
"We haven't had a hit from it. We still sell about 3,000 pounds a week," said Barber.
And come Super Bowl Sunday, on average, her job sells as many as 60 dozen wings or more. Barber does not expect the price increase to impact Sunday's sales either.
The high chicken prices have hatched from a variety of pandemic-related supply chain issues, causing Brad Bengele, co-owner of Strip District Meats, to raise prices too.
"Back in the beginning of the pandemic, everybody was rushing to buy all their meat so that diminished the supply right there. And then as the packing houses started going down, that bottlenecked it again. And now they're just not able to produce the amount of animals," Bengele said.
There have also been issues keeping chicken wings on shelves, especially this week as demand soars ahead of the big game.
"Our main supplier, this week, they were supposed to send us two pallets of wings. We got 14 wings from them," said Bengele.
Luckily, Strip District Meats has other suppliers around the country on standby. Bengele said he was able to come up with 98 additional cases on Friday to meet demand.