Poultry

America is the world’s number one producer of poultry and a major producer of chicken eggs. Broiler chickens are raised for their meat rather than their eggs and the U.S. produces over 40 billion pounds of broiler meat annually. It used to be that ready-to-cook chickens were sold whole with the giblet pouch inside, but these days consumers are willing to pay a higher price for the convenience of pre-cut broiler pieces. The U.S. is the largest producer of turkeys and consumes more turkey per capita than any other country. Three-fourths of poultry eggs that are produced are for table consumption and the other quarter is for hatching new birds. Iowa, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana and California are the top 5 egg producing states.