The year of the chicken nugget (2017) and the chicken sandwich wars (2019) might have paved the way for fried chicken's latest role: star of a Netflix show. Next month, the streaming giant is releasing a bizarrely fun-looking comedy based on a Korean web cartoon called, fittingly, 'Chicken Nugget.' Voiced over in English, the show depicts a father and his intern's attempts to save a young woman who turned into a bite-sized morsel of crunchy protein.
The premise of 'Chicken Nugget' is silly, of course — but the show underscores the bird's soaring global popularity. As countries get wealthier, people eat more meat, and they're choosing chicken in particular. Average poultry consumption was 32.8 pounds per person in 2021, compared with 15 in 1991, according to data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
The jump in the world's chicken appetite comes from a few places: Last century, scientists figured out how to make chickens fatter and get them to market faster and cheaper. Health-conscious consumers started eschewing beef in favor of lean protein, like chicken. And in the early 1960s, a renowned Cornell University professor engineered one of the Ivy League's greatest contributions to humanity: the frozen chicken nugget.
The US has reaped the benefits of chicken's popularity, becoming the largest chicken producer and the second-largest exporter, behind Brazil. While Americans are eating less turkey, chicken consumption has only increased, both over decades and in a recent spike.
The US Department of Agriculture's data (which ends in 2021) shows how the country's chicken stock has taken off since World War II, while fish and pork are relatively stagnant. Beef, meanwhile, no longer enjoys the popularity it had before the government started warning of Americans' overconsumption.
Perhaps the most famous nugget — the McDonald's Chicken McNugget — debuted in 1983. And the world's most famous burger joint now sells just as much chicken as beef, McD's CEO said earlier this month.
Popeyes sold out of its debut chicken sandwich within two weeks of the 2019 launch. The company went on to sell 250 million sandwiches in a year.
And the CEO of Wingstop — late to the chicken sandwich game — said this month that the company's first offering is attracting new diners who are wealthier, younger, and less likely to have children than its usual customers. One of my colleagues loved the Wingstop chicken sandwich over its competitors for one reason: variety. The company sells a dozen flavors, from lemon pepper to original hot. (BI reporters know their chicken sandwiches — we review them by the dozens.)
It's unclear if the young woman in the forthcoming Netflix series turns into a particular flavor of chicken nugget. A public relations representative did not address this question when asked.
