Broiler Chicken Industry Key Facts 2022

  • Approximately 30 federally-inspected companies are involved in the business of raising, processing and marketing chickens on a “vertically integrated” basis – that is, the company is able to ensure quality and consumer requirements at each step of the process. 
  • About 25,000 family farmers have production (growout) contracts with the companies.  Approximately 95 percent of broiler chickens are produced on these farms, with the remaining 5 percent raised on company-owned farms or farms without contracts. Family farms also produce pullets and hatching eggs under contracts. 
  • In 2022, more than 9.4 billion broiler chickens, weighing 62 billion pounds, liveweight, were produced. About 44 billion pounds of chicken products were marketed, measured on a ready-to-cook basis. That was a 2.9% increase from 2021. 
  • The United States has the largest broiler chicken industry in the world with about 16 percent of production exported to other countries. 
  • The United States is the second leading broiler exporter in the world, behind Brazil. 
  • The top 5 export destinations (value) in 2022 were China, Mexico, Canada, Cuba and Taiwan. 
  • The top 5 export destinations (volume) in 2022 were Mexico, China, Cuba, Taiwan, and Philippines.
  • Americans consume more chicken (young meat chicken and fowl) than anyone else in the world – 100.6 pounds per capita in 2022 – the number one protein consumed in the United States. 
  • The top 7 broiler producing states are: North Carolina, Georgia, Arkansas, Alabama, Texas, Mississippi, and Delaware.

Broiler Chicken Business Key Facts 2022

Basic economic measurements include:
Number of slaughter/evisceration plants195
Number of workers directly employed381,164
Number of workers indirectly employed1.5 million
Number of family farms growing broilers and/or
producing hatching eggs
25,000
Amount of corn used for broiler and breeder feedMore than 1.4 billion bushels
Amount of soybean (meal component) used for Broiler and breeder feed
More than 580 million bushels
Amount of mixed feed used65 million tons
Wholesale value of shipments of industry$100 billion
Consumer expenditures for chicken$132 billion

Source: USDA and NCC. No estimated or forward-looking figures are provided by NCC.