Butler restaurants, meat departments see chicken wing prices drop
No one who sells chicken wings needs to be egged on to crow about the recent price drop for the crispy, saucy delicacies.
Wholesale wings became scarce during the height of the coronavirus pandemic, which drove prices sky high.
Some restaurants and meat departments either stopped offering wings or raised their prices to compensate for the increased cost.
But that situation — which many say was caused by social distancing or COVID-19 outbreaks among workers at processing plants — seems to have ended and prices are returning to pre-pandemic levels.
“They’ve been dropping steadily for about six weeks,” said Deb Krelow, owner of the Beacon Hotel in Forward Township. “Our Tuesday night wing nights are back to $1 per wing. It was $1.75.”
She said a half-dozen of the Beacon’s jumbo wings were priced at $14, and have dropped to $12.
“It’ll drop more as the price of wings drops,” Krelow said.
She said her dedicated wing customers continued to order during the price increase, causing her cooks to go through six to eight 40-pound cases of wings per week.
“I swear, it was crazy,” Krelow said.
She said the restaurant business continues to be frustrating, as paper products are always hard to find, and she was unable to find a purveyor to sell her carrots last week.
“The drop in wing prices is a relief to us, with the difficulty we’re having getting everything now,” she said.
Krelow said her 10th annual Wingfest this summer was “terrible” due to the wing situation.
“We literally broke even on Wingfest because we couldn’t get whole jumbo wings,” she said.
She was forced to raise the admission price to the popular event in the last two years due to the wing shortage.
“It’s a nice relief now,” Krelow said. “It’s nice to pass those savings along to our customers.”
Josh Novotny, owner of Novotny’s Pizza in Saxonburg, said his wings are down to $24 per dozen from a high of $26 during the shortage.
“Customers should see that price dropping down on the weekend,” Novotny said. “I’m getting a delivery tomorrow.”
While he sold about 400 pounds of wings per week before the pandemic, his sales dropped to about 300 pounds during the price increase.
He said prices for fryer oil, to-go boxes and other items remain high, however.
“I don’t know why wings have dropped so dramatically all of a sudden, but let’s just roll with it,” Novotny said.
Chuck Shever, the meat department manager at the Butler Farm Market in Connoquenessing Township, said his whole chicken wings recently dropped from $5.39 per pound to $2.29.
“At $5.39, I was selling them, but not like I am now,” Shever said.
He said some customers complained about the price of wings before they dropped and did not always want to hear the reasoning for the high costs.
“I tried to explain it’s supply and demand,” Shever said. “I just chase the numbers and the market like everyone else.”
He gets fresh wings three days per week from two companies.
Shever is glad the price of wings has dropped and hopes customers will stop confronting his workers now.
“It’s hard to explain to people,” Shever said. “They don’t get it.”
