Chicken wing squeeze

Mary Ann Wert is trying to remain unflappable about the spiraling cost of chicken wings.

"In the fall, as soon as they kick that pigskin, the price of chicken wings go up," said Mrs. Wert, owner of the Wing Wagon on Public Square. "But this was the worst I've ever seen in the 28 years I've been open."

It's all a matter of supply flying in the face of demand.

Wing Wagon is a Watertown pioneer of the pungent poultry product. Mrs. Wert spoke a few weeks ago as she took turns going from the kitchen to the checkout counter before a lunch rush. A wall opposite the counter is dotted with letters of appreciation and thank-you notes from organizations and individuals in the community.

Chicken wings came into fashion in 1964 at the Anchor Bar in Buffalo. A co-owner there cooked leftover wings in hot sauce as a late-night snack for her son and his friends, according to the National Chicken Council. The boys liked them so much that wings were on the menu the next day.

Mrs. Wert said she spent $60 per 40-pound case for wings last year and has been spending $84 since the National Football League playoffs started in January. Despite the NFL season being over, prices have not dropped and her profits have been clipped.

When Mrs. Wert and her husband, Charles, opened Wing Wagon in 1982, customers paid $2.49 for 10 wings. Now it costs $7.60.

She noted she paid 35 cents a pound for jumbo wings when the business opened and now pays $2.15 per pound. "That's a six-fold increase," she said. "My price increases have not been on par with that. When you do mostly wings for business, that really hurts."

Wings are popular throughout the north country. At McDuff's, 59 Market St., Potsdam, they're the No. 1 food item. The tavern/restaurant sold 2,700 of them on Super Bowl Sunday in February.

"The issue with chicken wings is their volatility," said Jody C. Wenzel, who co-owns McDuff's with his wife, Heather. "Their prices can fluctuate from week to week."

He said 2009 was a particularly tough year for prices and supply, when he saw wings hit $100 per case around Super Bowl time. "Prices were way up, but they didn't come down to what their prices were before the Super Bowl," Mr. Wenzel said.

He said suppliers were running out of wings earlier this year. "I'd order 20 cases and get 10," Mr. Wenzel said. "We'd put in orders for all we could get leading up to the Super Bowl."

Mr. Wenzel said he has noticed a recent price drop. "But the biggest impact is we just can't continue to pass these fluctuations on to the customer," he said. "It's a straight hit to the profit margin."

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In part, the shortages and price hikes are due to the fact that more wings are being served. The Washington, D.C.-based National Chicken Council notes that eateries sell 8.5 billion wings a year and 3.5 billion are sold at the grocery level.

According to Michael E. Sheats, chief of Poultry Market News and Analysis at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the average wholesale price of wings in 2009 in the Northeast was $1.47 a pound, up nearly 40 percent from 2008's $1.05. The price through March 26 of this year was $1.62 a pound, compared to $1.46 at the same three-month period last year.

Richard L. Lobb, spokesman for the National Chicken Council, said that at supermarkets, the average retail price for ready-to-cook chicken wings in the last week of March was $1.92 per pound, up from $1.68 a year ago.

"However, that is down from $2.17 the previous week," he said.

Mr. Sheats said prices usually start to increase at the beginning of football season in late summer.

"Everybody thinks their team is going to win, until four weeks into the season when they realize that was a pipe dream." Mr. Sheats said.

That's when football viewership declines, and with it, some of the demand for wings, which go hand-in-hand with football viewing for many. Prices creep back up around the Super Bowl.

But wing prices remained high this year.

"Prices should be off the highs associated with the Super Bowl period, which we think was extended somewhat this year by the Olympics and other sports activity," said Mr. Lobb.

He said wing production should rebound this year, "depending on the national economic picture and the unemployment situation."

"We sell nearly half of our product into the food service channel, and people don't go out to eat so much when they are unemployed," said Mr. Lobb.

"The outlook is we will increase production of birds largely due to falling feed prices," said Mr. Sheats.

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To fight the high prices, many restaurants have begun to offer "boneless chicken wings," which aren't wings at all but rather chicken breast meat covered in wing sauce.

That trend doesn't fly with traditionalists like Mrs. Wert.

"Chicken wings aren't chicken wings unless they've got a bone in them," said Mrs. Wert. "Chicken breast is cheaper. I could put that in a fryer and add sauce, but it's not a wing."

"I guess there's nothing like chewing it off the bone," said Mr. Sheats.