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ELKINS -- Despite gossip swirling throughout the community and various calls made to the Inter-Mountain on the subject, it was confirmed by the state's biggest chicken producer, Pilgrim's Pride Corporation, that there is currently no poultry shortage.
"There's definitely no chicken shortage with us," Pam Tennant, complex administrator at Pilgrim's Pride, told The Inter-Mountain. "If there are places that are not getting chicken, it's not because we have any kind of a shortage going on."
Most of the concerns and questions in the area came after a local church had to cancel a chicken burn earlier this month because they were not able to obtain the necessary amount of chicken for the event. Tennant confirmed that there was a simple explanation behind that order not being fulfilled.
"The reason for that is because by the time the request came in it was too late to place an order for it," Tennant said. "We had already reached the maximum amount of product we could do for outside orders that week. We have customers that we have to make sure chicken goes out on trucks for. Once we get to a certain point, we can't receive any outside orders."
Tennant said that all requests for chicken need to be made two weeks prior to an event. She recommended that orders be placed as soon as an event is scheduled.
Richard Humphries, president of the Elkins Lions Club, said his organization ran into the same situation for a chicken burn that was planned earlier this month.
"We had scheduled a burn for June 4 and the same thing happened to us," Humphries told The Inter-Mountain. "We didn't get our order in on time and they (Pilgrim's Pride) contacted me immediately to let us know. For now we are going to get our order as soon as we schedule a date."
Humphries said that Pilgrim's Pride has always been and still is a great company with which to work. He feels that the orders needing to be in sooner for nonprofits than they were in the past, has to do with demand.
"I think they're getting a bigger amount of orders than they usually do," Humphries said. "And I think it's because everyone is starting to have these (chicken burns) after not being able to do it for a while because of COVID and the pandemic situation."
The Lions Club's June chicken burn has been rescheduled to take place on July 2 at the Citizens Bank parking lot. The dinners should be available for purchase around 11 a.m.
Across the country, supply chain issues are making chicken harder to get in some places, but the National Chicken Council stated last month that there was no chicken shortage and there was none expected for the foreseeable future. In fact, the NCC is predicting production to be up this year.