Eating Less Chicken Due to the Recession?

Just in time for Thanksgiving. At first, this report about layoffs at some chicken processing plants down in Alabama looked pretty routine:

More than 360 employees at two Wayne Farms facilities in Morgan County may be laid off around Christmastime, company officials said.

Wayne plans to eliminate as many as 5 of the 6 lines at the Further Processing East plant at 110 Plugs Drive in Decatur., Additional layoffs will come from the Further Processing West plant next door.

But then there was this little tidbit:

The plants make cooked and prepared chicken products, sold to restaurants and grocery stores. Officials say there's a reduced demand for chicken, leading to the cuts.

A "reduced demand for chicken?" Sure make you wonder doesn't it. Maybe it struck a chord with me because my own father had a lifelong aversion to chicken. He developed his distaste for poultry growing up as a child in the latter half of the Great Depression when the only meat the family could afford was chicken. My dad ate steaks his whole adult life, usually ones he grilled himself. As kids, my brothers and I found our dad's aversion to chicken to be amusing, and to taunt him sometimes we'd answer "Kentucky Fried Chicken!" when he would ask us where we wanted to go eat.

The only logical reason demand for such a basic meat staple could be dropping is that people are getting too poor to afford it anymore. Because it sure isn't due to them suddenly all being able to afford to run out and buy steak.