Chicken wings are the unofficial staple food of Super Bowl Sunday and an NCC report said consumption could hit 1.33 billion wings during the massive American football sporting event.
The NCC’s annual wing report estimates Americans will eat enough chicken wings to circle the circumference of the earth nearly three times. In fact, with the projected poultry expected to weigh in at around 166.25 million pounds (lb), the 1.33bn chicken wings will weigh 338 times more than the combined weight of all 32 NFL teams.
For reference, American football players are big, with an average height of 6ft 4inches and a weight of around 250lb. It would take one NFL player over 1,265 years to eat 1.33bn chicken wings.
‘Wing’hungry’
Super Bowl weekend will see the Atlanta Falcons and the New England Patriots compete for the Lombardi trophy on Sunday 5 February.
“Although we typically like to stick together with ‘feathered’ teams, we’ll keep our projections to wing consumption and not the Super Bowl winner,” said Tom Super, National Chicken Council’s
senior vice-president of communications.
“With two pretty dominant wing-hungry regions in the game, this year’s Super Bowl should be great for both football and chicken wing fans.”
Regional chicken wing consumption for the two rival Super Bowl teams is pretty close, the NCC said. Chicken wing consumption in north-eastern US, home to the four-times Super Bowl winner the New England Patriots, is 12% higher than the national average. The US south – Atlanta Falcons country – eats 13% more wings than average.
The sporting event is particularly good for the foodservice and restaurant business, accountable for three-quarters of chicken wing consumption during the event. Supermarkets also see sales “spike dramatically” in the run-up to Super Bowl as shoppers stock up on wings, according to the NCC.
