Capitalizing on consumers' use of air fryers, Tyson introduced a new line of heat-and-eat chicken nuggets, bites and strips.
Not Just Winging It
As Americans down a lot more chicken than any other proteins, they have more choices at the grocery store, too.
For example, although many people are back to full-swing or almost full-swing schedules, there are still many folks who continue to cook at home and are looking for solutions to save them time and hassle. Demand for cooked chicken — including but beyond the stalwart rotisserie chicken — is especially high.
“Consumer interest in high-protein diets is continuing to spur innovation in the chicken industry,” observes Super. “One example is cooked chicken. Companies are committing serious investments to ramp up production of cooked chicken to meet current and future demand. Investments are particularly devoted to automation and robotics as securing sufficient labor remains an operational challenge.”
Value-added poultry products are also making things easier and more interesting for shoppers. The venerable Butterball brand, for instance, offers both fresh and frozen seasoned turkey burgers. Another turkey brand, Jennie-O, has added a slew of fresh and frozen value-added items to its portfolio, including packages of taco-seasoned ground turkey.
In chicken, Harrisonburg, Va.-based Farmer Focus, a 100% USDA Organic and Humane Certified chicken company, offers culinary-inspired pre-seasoned varieties like Zesty Peruvian Lime, Rich Red Curry and Chophouse Seasoned.
Leading category brand Tyson is tapping into demand for flavor and convenience with its line of ready-to-use meal kits designed for particular cooking methods. Offerings include a hatch-green-chile-chicken-and-rice meal kit for Instant Pots, and a chicken-and-vegetables meal kit for slow cookers. Hitching onto the popularity of one-pan meals, Tyson offers kits for those applications, too, including a meal kit with roasted garlic chicken and parmesan mushroom risotto that can be prepared in a skillet in 15 minutes.
In addition to Tyson, other meal kit makers are providing varieties with easy, accessible poultry. New York-based Blue Apron, for example, recently teamed up with Walmart to offer non-subscription meal kits in varieties like Rosemary & Panko Chicken with Roasted Potatoes and Creamy Lemon Sauce.
The frozen and heat-and-eat categories are a particular hotbed of R&D activity. Based on the popularity of air fryers, Tyson launched a line of Air Fried chicken nuggets, bites and strips that can be cooked in an air fryer and contain 75% less fat than other fried chicken options. Meanwhile, Chicken Plus Chicken Tots from Salisbury, Md.-based Perdue Farms, made with a blend of white-meat chicken, cauliflower, chickpeas, cabbage and potatoes, recently won a People magazine food award as one of the best new supermarket products of the year.
Between meals, meat snacks made with poultry are lending species diversity to the snack aisle. “Protein snacks are another category projecting upward,” notes Super. “Many consumers are snacking more and are looking for high-protein, low-fat products that are healthy but also fill you up. Chicken meat snacks include salty snacks made from chicken skin, courtesy of brands like Flock, and jerky products with chicken as the main ingredient.”
In addition to variety and ease of use, value is increasingly driving the chicken category, both in terms of product development and in-store merchandising. Grocers can provide solutions for consumers on a budget by promoting value cuts like chicken thighs and drumsticks and pointing shoppers to prepared meals that have smaller portions of chicken or turkey as ingredients.