Investors in McDonald’s, the world’s largest fast-food chain, heard at a recent event how the company will focus on growing its share of the chicken market over the coming years.

The company will target growth in the chicken category, which it said is worth $130bn across all restaurant chains in the 10 largest markets and is growing at 5% per year. Beef sales, by comparison, are $50bn and growing at 3% per year.

While McDonald’s has a much larger share of the beef market, it is not targeting growth in that sector, instead putting its focus on chicken. It aims to acheieve an extra 1.5% share of that market, equivalent to a $1.95bn increase in chicken sales at current addressable market scale.

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The strategic update comes as prices for beef remain elevated across the company’s major markets. The increase in beef prices has led to an increase in demand for chicken among consumers, but also means that margins for restaurants have held up better when selling chicken than selling beef.

The McDonald’s move is being driven by both consumer preferences and its own need to maintain its profitability.

While the move towards chicken among consumers has accelerated recently, the trend for more poultry consumption has been in place for more than a decade.

In Ireland, data from the CSO shows that per capita annual consumption of poultry meat increased by more than 60% between 2012 and 2024, the last year for which data is currently available (see Figure 1), while consumption of beef fell slightly across the same time span.

Ireland has met this increase in consumption through imports, rather than domestic production. The country had a record trade deficit in poultry of 70,000t in 2024.

There is nothing in what McDonald’s said to suggest that the fast-food chain is turning away from beef, but if chicken is what consumers want, and it is chicken that will give it the best return, then it is no wonder that is where it will concentrate its efforts over the coming years.