Joe F. Sanderson Jr., chairman and chief executive officer of Sanderson Farms, said poultry companies are struggling to keep up with the demand for chicken wings, and the price of wings needs to increase at the retail level in order to balance the supply and demand.
Speaking on May 18 during the Goldman Sachs Global Staples Forum, Sanderson discussed the challenges the third largest broiler producer in the United States is facing with the current demand for chicken wings.
“We cannot supply enough wings to anybody, at retail or at foodservice. We’re short every week 15 loads of wings to retail. We’re short right now every week 15 loads of wings to foodservice,” he said.
Sanderson said the company recently picked up a new customer that needs an estimated 40 million pounds of wings per year. He believes the reason Sanderson Farms was able to add that customer is because its previous supplier was unable to supply them with any wings, and Sanderson Farms will not leave any customer completely without.
“We allocate our wings, and everybody is going to get some wings,” said Sanderson. “We can’t fulfill every order, but we do allocate and everybody gets some.”
“It’s obvious, wing prices need to go up at retail,” he added.
The shortage of chicken products has been a concern of many large buyers – including KFC and Wingstop – during recent weeks. Speaking during an April 28 conference call, Wingstop Chairman Charles Morrison said, “Suppliers are struggling just as many in our industry are, to hire people or to process chicken, thus placing unexpected pressure on the amount of birds that can be processed and negatively affecting supply of all parts of the chicken in the U.S., not just wings.”
Headquartered in Laurel, Mississippi, Sanderson Farms produced 94.31 million pounds of ready-to-cook chicken on a weekly basis in 2020.
