It’s a Great Time to Be a Chicken Nugget Lover

(Bloomberg) -- With chicken as cheap as its ever been, restaurants are stepping up promos on nuggets and tenders to draw in diners.

Chicken breast prices have plunged nearly 20 percent from a year ago, data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture show. Prices for boneless, skinless breasts were 90.08 cents a pound on Oct. 5, a record low in the data going back to 1992.

This may be sparking a new price war at restaurant chains: Burger King said Wednesday it will sell 10 pieces of chicken nuggets for just $1 in some U.S. markets, while Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen is touting a $5 deal for boneless wings, which use breast meat. Wingstop Inc., in the meantime, has started a new discount nationally that includes 25 boneless wings and three dips for $15.99.

Chicken breast meat is commonly used in fast-food fare, and it will be advertised heavily heading into football season in the U.S., said Will Sawyer, an economist at CoBank. Prices are low because of a glut of meat of all kinds across the U.S. he said.

“We’ll see a significant increase, if we haven’t already, of featuring of boneless wings,” Sawyer said.

To contact the reporters on this story: Leslie Patton in Chicago at lpatton5@bloomberg.net;Lydia Mulvany in Chicago at lmulvany2@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Anne Riley Moffat at ariley17@bloomberg.net, Jonathan Roeder, Lisa Wolfson

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