Over a billion reasons to wing this story

It’s wing day here at StatsCAN Plus (we’re keeners!), a day ahead of National Chicken Wing Day, celebrated in tasty fashion at countless homes and restaurants every July 29.

And if you’re reading this on your phone while chowing down on wings, grab a wet nap already, so you can scroll through the rest of this stat sauce.

Record number of chickens, wings

Canadian farmers produced over 769.6 million chickens in 2022, weighing in at over 1.3 billion kilograms, both of which are all-time highs and valued at a record $3.8 billion. Nearly one-third (32.6%) of them came from Ontario, over one-quarter (26.3%) came from Quebec, while 15.4% hailed from British Columbia.

OK, StatCan, but how many wings is that?

Well, technically, each chicken has two wings. But, depending on how each bird is processed, there could be up to three parts per wing that end up in the package you get at the grocery store or hot and fresh at your local pub or restaurant.

That said, let’s stick with anatomy, which means over 1.5 billion wings were produced in Canada last year!

We’ve tracked chicken production back to 2001, when 608.9 million chickens made up nearly all (97.5%) of the 624.8 million total birds produced. In 1963, the year the current data series began, there were 144.1 million total birds produced.

Can’t get enough chicken…

Some of the chicken produced in Canada gets exported, but there is always plenty left over. The annual Food Availability program estimates the amount of food available for consumption in Canada on a per-capita basis.

In 2022, there were 21.30 kilograms of chicken (boneless weight) available per Canadian, which is also an all-time high, up from 20.73 kilograms in 2021 and the previous high of 21.10 kilograms in 2019.

Similarly to production, we’ve tracked this amount annually all the way back to 1963, when there were 6.09 kilograms available per Canadian. That’s less than one-third of the 2022 amount! 

… but less bang for your buck

Like most other items on your grocery list, chicken has gone up in price. On an annual average basis, Canadians paid 7.7% more for fresh or frozen chicken at the grocery store in 2022, compared with 2021. That’s just below the 9.8% overall increase for food purchased from stores.

If you went out for wings, you probably noticed an increase as well. Prices for food purchased from restaurants increased 6.7% on an average annual basis in 2022.

So, you know the deal, watch for the sales at the stores and the all-you-can-eat wing specials at your local eatery. Now that you’ve finished reading this, we’ll let you get back to your snack. Save some for us!