QSR September 2022

| C H I C K E N W I N G S | fresh ideas It’s been an up-and-down year, as usual, for one of the sector’s hottest commodities. B Y B A R N E Y W O L F rr

The Wild World of Wings

Wing it On! began serving chicken

and veggie dumplings in May.

A lot of quick-service restaurants have been “winging” it over the past couple years. As the price of bone-in chicken wings soared in 2021, wing-centric eateries had to adjust quickly. And though bone-in wing costs have dropped this year to pre-pandemic levels, oper ators had to switch gears again, as the price for chicken breasts, which provide the meat for boneless wings and tenders, soared— as have the costs for many other commodities as well as labor. The past two years “have been a constant juggling act” in terms of pricing, supply, staffing, menu development, andmore, says Gus

Malliaras, founder and owner of Detroit Wing Company, based in Eastpointe, Michigan. Most wings restaurants took at least one price hike this year or in 2021, but stress on margins remain. In addition, rising gas prices and other inflationary pressures on consumers left little price elas ticity. “Right now, there’s not a whole lot of room tomove,” he says. Dan Leyva, chief wing officer at Wings Over, sums up the sup ply price picture succinctly: “Everything that can go up at this point is going up.” Like many restaurants, “we’ve absorbed the majority of their costs,” he adds.

WING IT ON!

www.qsrmagazine.com | QSR | SEPTEMBER 2022

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