Poultry

Chicken meat, the fastest-growing and cheapest major meat, built on industrial breeding lines and corn and soybean feed.

Livestock & dairy · No. 111

• Not on a critical list
• HHI 610 · unconcentrated

Chicken overtook pork as the world's top meat in 2024, and nearly every bird descends from a handful of patented breeding lines.

Chart: Illustration: Poultry

Where it comes from

Chart: Map of where it comes from

Modern broilers come from a few proprietary breeding lines; hatcheries ship day-old chicks to contract farms, and birds reach market in mere weeks on corn-soy feed.

Three things to know

1. World chicken output rose from 35.4 million tonnes in 1990 to 128.3 million in 2024, edging past pig meat at 125.4 million.
2. Hybrid broilers breed true for only one generation, so farmers must keep buying parent birds from a few breeding companies.
3. Western shoppers pay for breast meat, so leg quarters and paws are shipped to Asia, Africa and Russia; Brazil supplies 26.5% of exports.

The journey

1. 1 Breeder flocksProprietary genetic lines, rebought each generation
2. 2 HatcheryEggs hatched into day-old chicks
3. 3 Grow-out housesContract farms feed corn and soy
4. 4 ProcessingWhole birds, breasts and leg quarters
5. 5 MarketChilled retail or frozen export

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