Insight · 23 September 2026
The chicken century
In 2023 chicken became the world's most produced meat.
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For most of the twentieth century the world's meat supply was built on pig and beef. In 2000 chicken passed beef and buffalo. In 2023 it passed pig meat, by the narrowest of margins: 124.7 against 124.6 million tonnes.
The gap is now opening. World chicken production reached 128.3 million tonnes in 2024, 17 times its level in 1961, while pig meat stood at 125.4 million tonnes and beef and buffalo at 77.
The drivers are familiar to anyone who has run a poultry business: the shortest cycle of any meat, the best feed conversion, no religious barrier in the largest growth markets, and a price point that follows household income down the pyramid. None of these is about to change.
Source: FAO, processed by Our World in Data (CC BY). Ulnus analysis. Production in carcass weight equivalent; chicken ready to cook equivalent.