So far this year, cold storage items have produced an all-time record high for the month of September in eight of the red meat and poultry categories tracked. Among poultry items: chicken breast meat, drumsticks, legs and turkey breast hit new September records this year. Cold storage data for some categories has been tracked since the early 1900s. As time has gone on, more specific categories have evolved. For example, the chicken parts dataset only dates back to 2003, while turkey breasts have only been tracked since 2009. USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service prints monthly records for all the items that are tracked in inventory. This September’s new records for poultry outpaced previous records by double digits in both turkey and chicken breast categories, climbing 17 and 13 percent higher, respectively. The September drumsticks cold storage record was 9 percent higher than the previous September high, while chicken legs were only 4 percent higher.
Cold storage inventories of chicken pieces have been setting records often this year. Figure 1 shows the new monthly records in these categories.
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