Super Bowl weekend is unquestionably the biggest time of the year for wings.  According to the National Chicken Councils ***3 Wing Report, more than 1.*3 billion wing portions will be consumed during Super Bowl weekend in ***3, as fans watch the San Francisco *9ers and the Baltimore Ravens battle for the Lombardi Trophy.

To put that into perspective, if 1.*3 billion wing segments were laid end to end, they would stretch from Candlestick Park in San Francisco to M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore… *7 times.

Super Bowl wing consumption is down about one percent, or *2.3 million wings, compared to last years numbers, but not because demand for them is declining.  Quite the opposite, explains Bill Roenigk, chief economist and market analyst at the Washington, D.C.-based National Chicken Council.

Chicken companies produced about one percent fewer birds last year, due in large part to record high corn and feed prices, Roenigk said.  Corn makes up more than two-thirds of chicken feed and corn prices hit an all-time high in ***2, due to two reasons:  last summers drought and pressure from a federal government requirement that mandates *0 percent of our corn crop be turned into fuel in the form of ethanol.  Simply put, less corn equals higher feed costs, which means fewer birds produced.