While New England is known for its chowder and Seattle for its salmon tossing, when it comes to Super Bowl menus, nothing is hotter than wings. The Washington, DC National Chicken Council (NCC) has released its annual Chicken Wing Report, projecting that Americans to eat 1.48 billion chicken wings while watching the Patriots and Seahawks battle for the Lombardi Trophy on February 8. This figure represents an increase of about 10 million more wings than last year’s game.
“I think Bradley Cooper is wrong: Football is for food,” said NCC spokesperson Tom Super. “Especially when it comes to the Super Bowl, where wings rule the roost. For football fans looking to add protein to their spreads at an affordable price, wings are king of Super Bowl menus.”
How do 1.48 billion chicken wings stack up?
• Laid end to end, they’d stretch roughly 27 times from Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, to Lumen Field in Seattle, Washington
• They’d circle the planet almost three times
• Eat one wing every 30 seconds and you’ll finish right around the year 3430
• Or one wing every 30 seconds since the fall of the Roman Empire
• You’d need more than 3,400 fully loaded semi-trucks to haul them all – enough trucks to make a 40-mile long convoy of nothing but wings
NFL Playoffs + Wings
During the latest four weeks (playoff window), chicken wing units surged 19.8% year-over-year in the USA and dollars were up 11.4% versus the prior period, reflecting strong seasonal/game‑day demand, according to Circana figures.
In the Seattle retail market over the past four weeks during the playoffs, wing sales were up 8.6% in dollars, up 26.3% in units and up 22.2% in volume. In the Boston market, wing sales rose 4.4% in dollars, 17.1% in units and 10.9% in volume.
But of the four cities who played in the NFC and AFC Championship games, consumers in Los Angeles order the most wings per person at 4 times per year, beating out Boston, Seattle and Denver.
An Affordable Protein Option
Retail prices for wings are down 2.8% year-over-year, with a four-week moving average from Circana of $3.47 per pound, according to Wells Fargo’s Super Bowl Food Report. This dip in cost comes thanks to US broiler producers boosting domestic production by 2.2% in 2025, aided by lower feed costs.
Despite softer wing prices, at 57 million lbs., cold storage inventories reported to through the end of November were at their lowest November total in more than 10 years (outside of the 2020 Covid period), according to the USDA. This means restaurants, bars and supermarkets started stocking up well in advance of the Big Game.
“The bottom line… wings will be available in plenty, they’ll be affordable, and they’ll be delicious,” Super concluded.
