Australians are eating more chicken than ever before, with the average person consuming 50 kilograms every year.
Butcher Serge Cancado sells a tonne of chicken every day to keep up with a five-fold increase in consumption of the meat over the last 50 years.
“It’s increasing every week,” Cancado said.
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“Everyone likes it, the kids like it …you can’t go wrong.”
With chicken filling up Aussie dinner plates, other traditional favourites like lamb and beef are being overlooked at the checkout.
“Fifty years ago, 80 per cent of all the meat we ate was sheep and cattle, and only 10 per cent was chicken. Now it’s almost completely the opposite,” ANZ Agribusiness Insights economist Michael Whitehead said.
Shoppers say the choice is price-related, with beef, lamb and pork have all significantly rising in cost in the last two decades, while chicken has incurred a more modest price hike.
That’s because chickens grow faster and require less land and water, with about 1.5 kilograms of feed yielding a kilogram of meat.
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But it’s not just dining tables where the protein has become a staple, with international money markets also eyeing off Aussie chicken.
“Global money is already looking at Australian chicken production,” Whitehead said.
“[It’s] highly efficient on a global basis, it’s a very safe meat and it makes, of so many agricultural options, a very good investment.”
The cost efficiency of the meat means it’s quickly filling up fast-food menus too, according to Whitehead.
“Once upon a time, not that long ago, [fast food restaurant menus] were predominantly beef,” he said.
“Now they’re more and more chicken, whether it’s on the burger menus, or so many of the new entrants.
“Look around any food court going up around Australian shopping centres and you will see that chicken is the dominant meat.”
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