ORLANDO, Fla. – A mainstay of Super Bowl Sunday will likely cost you a lot more — Chicken wings.
“Wings have always been our staple and now that’s not our staple,” Carmen Jordan Jr. of Friendly Confines restaurants said. “At this point, I think what people are realizing is everything like a chicken wing is a delicacy.”
The local mom-and-pop restaurant with locations in Altamonte Springs, Lake Mary and Orland said chicken wings have become scarce and are in high demand for Central Florida restaurants owners.
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“It’s kind of a loss leader at this point,” Jordan said. “We’ve gone down to six and twelve, that’s our only quantities available. Last year, you were able to order 100 just because we knew we had plenty and we were able to sell that.”
Their hottest item on the menu no longer has a set price, instead, it’s at a market price — a result of the pandemic and supply chain issues.
“A year ago they were about between 75 cents and a dollar a wing. Right now they’re pretty close to double that,” Jordan said. Adding this year, he could not buy enough chicken wings to make sure his restaurants will have enough for Super Bowl Sunday. “Per location, we had about 35 to 30 cases at each location that we were able to get and it wasn’t limited at all. This year, I was able to get five at each location.”
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According to the National Chicken Council, Americans are expected to eat 1.42 billion wings on Sunday.
The regional manager for the WingHouse said more and more restaurants are offering chicken wings — causing the high demand, therefore the increase in prices.
“Wings are an incredibly easy product to put on your menu,” Marc Petrini, regional manager for WingHouse Orlando said, adding their price for a 40 pound chicken wing case has gone up about $5 in the last year. “Back in probably the Fall of 2020 and into the Spring of 2021 was when it was getting to where it is now and that’s where you saw it — a case of wings going from $85 to $90 to well over $100 a case today.”
Jordan said he expects the prices of chicken wings to go back to normal prices toward the end of the year.
“Once everything gets working again and this whole pandemic is completely past us, and the supply chain issues come back to normal, then I’m sure it’ll come back to normal,” Jordan said.
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