Food shoppers may have welcomed the addition of ground turkey and ground pork into the
meat market, but University of Georgia research shows
ground chicken wouldn’t get an equal reception.
Searching for alternative uses for dark-meat chicken, the U.S.
Department of Agriculture funded a UGA research project that studied shoppers’
chicken-buying habits.
In a simulated supermarket test, UGA food scientists offered consumer panelists several
choices of chicken products. The options were boneless-skinless breasts, kabobs, stir-fry,
scallopini, boneless-skinless thighs, bone-in thighs and ground chicken. All except the
breast meat were dark-meat chicken products.
"We weren’t surprised to see breast meat turn out as the most preferred chicken
product," said Kay McWatters,
a UGA food scientist. "Kabobs and stir-fry tied for second place. Scallopini (thin,
pounded chicken used either as cutlets or rolled around other foods and then cooked) came
in third."
Ground chicken was the shoppers’ least favorite choice. "The visual ratings were
very low," McWatters said. "Consumers just didn’t like the way it looked."
Those who said they’d be willing to buy ground chicken also said they’d expect it to
cost less per pound than ground beef. They’d most likely use ground chicken in meat sauces
and chili, they said. Those are the same ways they use ground pork and ground turkey.
Further supporting Americans’ love of white-meat chicken, 67 percent of the consumer
panelists preferred white meat. The next biggest group, 23 percent, had no preference.
Among the small percentage who buy dark-meat chicken, most buy legs, drumsticks, thighs
and mixed dark-meat pieces, in that order.
If Americans aren’t eating dark-meat chicken, who is?
"Our two major export markets for chicken are Russia and Hong Kong/China,"
said Sara Jackson of the U.S. Poultry and Egg Export
Council. "Twenty percent of the broiler meat produced in the United States is
exported, and almost all of it is dark-meat chicken."
Jackson said Asian consumers like chicken feet or paws best in addition to dark-meat.
Paws are a delicacy in a lot of Asian countries," said Jackson. "Like much of
the world, they prefer dark-meat over breast meat."
Russian shoppers also prefer dark-meat. "They don’t produce enough chickens for
their country," Jackson said. "Farming in Russia suffered as a result of their
changes in government."
Jackson said Americans’ taste preferences and the law of supply and demand actually
work in favor of American poultry growers.
"Because U. S. consumers have an overwhelming preference for breast meat, they are
willing to pay premium prices for it," said Jackson. "As a result, the value of
dark-meat is lower and U. S. exporters can sell dark-meat broiler products much more
profitably in foreign markets.
In 1997, the United States exported chicken meat worth more than $1.8 billion.
Overall, the UGA study found shoppers willing to try new, convenient dark-meat chicken
products like stir-fry and scallopini. It also found that they buy chicken based on brand
name and color.
"We found that consumers expect breast meat to be light pink and thigh meat to be
beige-pink, or they won’t buy it," McWatters said.
